Fiorentina striker Adrian Mutu has issued an open letter to FIFA and Chelsea asking for the £14.6m fine to be translated into work for drug addiction charities. "I cannot pay such a sum and no person in my condition realistically could," he said in a statement released to news agency ANSA.
"It is not an issue of intention so much as the comprehension of a rational and natural principle of inability.
"I am sorry for what happened when I was at Chelsea and I have carried that disappointment within me for years."
Mutu was ordered to pay compensation after failing a drugs test while at Stamford Bridge in 2004 and could even be banned from football if he does not resolve the debt.
"I think that the best way to define this issue, with the reciprocal satisfaction of all parties, would be this: I pledge to make a significant donation to a charity on Florence or another Italian city that works to help youngsters who have been affected by drugs and an identical donation to a charity chosen by Chelsea and another in my country of Romania.
"I absolutely no not wish to do 'mere charity' as much as prove along with Chelsea that our world is able to remember the real international and social importance of sport.
"That football is able to overcome its conflicts to contribute to the suffering of young people who have made mistakes, sometimes encouraged by bad examples set by various elements of society, including the world of sport.
"I want to show these young people they should not be destroyed, but recovered with the real values of life."
