Gillingham chairman Paul Scally had mixed emotions after seeing their former junior Ryan Bertrand win the Champions League with Chelsea.
An independent tribunal set a deal at an initial £125,000, with £100,000 due for every 10 league appearances made thereafter up to 40 games.
"It's sad to say it, but it's symptomatic of the rape of smaller clubs' youth systems by those in the Premier League," said Scally to the Observer. "Chelsea stole him from us, taking us to a tribunal, and we ended up getting peanuts in compensation. It's the Premier League clubs riding roughshod over the Football League. Given the millions that club have, it wouldn't have been a hardship for them to have paid a proper fee.
"But I bear no grudge towards the player. It's more the system that was wrong. Seeing him playing in a European Cup final makes us, as a club, very proud. This is a kid who came through the Gillingham youth system, and his progress is testimony to the hard work put in by everyone at our club's academy. From very early on, you could see he was a special talent."