Chelsea’s Spending: How is it happening, and what happens from now?
By Jim James
Chelsea FC Spent like no one’s business last summer. A total of 281 million euros were used to bring in the likes of Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella, Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Carney Chukwuemeka, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Gaga Slonina, and Denis Zakaria. Armando Broja and Conor Gallagher also returned from brilliant loan spells at Southampton and Crystal Palace, and they both felt like signings too. Chelsea could have become the record spenders in transfer window history, but a deadline day move for Josko Gvardiol fell through. Then, 6 days after the transfer window ended, Todd Boehly sacked manager Thomas Tuchel after a draw vs Dinamo Zagreb. At the time they were 6th in the Premier League, 5 points off the top with 3 wins in 6 games. Sacking a manager a week after the transfer window is a bad move in any world, but especially bad when you’ve backed him with nearly 300 million euros.
Brighton boss Graham Potter replaced Tuchel 2 days later, and some signings simply didn’t fit him. Players such as Denis Zarakia, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and Carney Chukwuemeka struggled for game time, and while Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Marc Cucurella got game time, they struggled a lot when they were on the field. 80 million euro signing Wesley Fofana has missed most of the games since sustaining a knee injury in early October and aggravating it four days after it had healed. He’s missed 18 games because of the injury, limiting him to only 6 games played so far this season. And remember – this deal made him the 25th most expensive player of all time, and the 4th most expensive defender of all time.
Despite all this, they went on a run of 9 games without defeat with Potter on the sideline, and it looked like Chelsea were saved after all – until October 29. Chelsea were 5th, tied for 4th spot, and 2 points out of 3rd with a sensational Arsenal and Man City distancing themselves from the pack by this point. They played Potter and Cucurella’s former side, Brighton. At the Amex as well, so it was a homecoming. On the fans’ side of things, there was no love lost between the two, and on the playing side, it was a horror show for Chelsea. Now-Arsenal-player Leandro Trossard rounded Kepa Arrizabalaga and scored into a net with 2 Chelsea defenders in it 5 minutes in. 9 minutes later a Brighton corner caught Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and it went barely over the line to make it 2-0. On the stroke of half-time, Pervis Estupinan’s cross hit a sliding Trevor Chalobah, Kepa could do nothing about it, and it was made 3-0 Brighton at half-time. Kai Havertz got a goal back right after the break, but the Brighton defense was hard to crack. In the second minute of added time, after chaos, 2 saves by Edouard Mendy and a bad error by Thiago Silva, Pascal Gross put it in the empty net to make it 4-1, the final score.
This may have been worrying, but Chelsea have one of these games every season. Last season it was a 4-1 loss to Brentford, the season before that, the season they won the Champions League, a 5-2 loss to West Brom, and the season before that a 4-0 loss to Man Utd.
However, Chelsea kept on losing. They lost their next 2 Premier League games 1-0 to Arsenal and Newcastle, went out in the EFL Cup 2-0 to Man City. They went into the World Cup break having lost their last 4 games against English opponents and going down to 9th, 8 points off the top 4, and 16 points off rivals Arsenal in 1st.
After the World Cup break, they started with an impressive victory over Bournemouth, but then it was back to Chelsea ways with a draw to Nottingham Forest, 1-0 and 4-0 losses to Manchester City, the latter of which ending their FA Cup run, and a 2-1 loss to Fulham.
All this losing has sparked even more spending by Chelsea after the 280 million spent in the summer. They started with bringing in Benoit Badiashile for 38 million, Andrey Santos for 12 million, and David Datro Fofana for 12 million. That already is one of the most high spending January windows ever. But no, they outdid themselves. They signed Joao Felix on loan for 6 months, it was an 11 million euro loan fee, Noni Madueke for 30 million, and hijacked Arsenal’s Mykhaylo Mudryk move and spent 70 million euros on him with an extra 30 in add-ons.
This brings their total spend to 460 million euros, well above anything any other leagues would ever permit. So how are they doing it? The short answer is still quite complicated. Let me explain.
While we don’t know too much of what goes on with FFP, but the experts and insiders seem to agree that they’re doing it by extending the deals of their signing to 6-7 year deals, and paying the transfer fees out over that period of time. That would mean they’d be paying anywhere from 65-100 million this season, well within FFP’s jurisdiction.
The real problems Chelsea have are a few things. One is other Premier League clubs calling them out on it, which is looking like something they may do and try to get an investigation started on them, a la the one that saw Juventus deducted 15 points yesterday. Another other one is wages and the length of the contract. Chelsea are currently paying 226 million pounds per year in wages, and if the signings don’t work out, they’re big wages for a long time. This is one of the things that caused Barcelona’s financial breakdown.
The last problem is Squad registration spots. With the Mudryk signing, Chelsea have used all 33 of their senior squad spots. A few of their signings have been counted as U21 players, such as Chukwuemeka and Madueke, so once they get over the age of 21, they’ll have to sell players just to keep them in the team. They also have other problems, as by the 2024-25 season, they’ll only be able to loan out 6 O21 players at a time, so they’ll have to find new clubs for their loan army.
In short: If the signings work out this is one of the biggest financial loopholes and biggest brain moves in recent history. If they don’t, Chelsea will be hurtling toward financial doom. I’m Jim James, and until next time.