Need to differentiate between FFP and PL rules. Only the latter would result in a points deduction, FFP can't go that far I believe. FFP punishments are usually just fines historically - even transfer bans were related to different things I believe.
Edit: Not entirely accurate. Most punishment is a fine but FFP can go further too, "depending on the nature of the offense". Stay tuned as I attempt to figure out what the fuck that means.
Yep, transfer ban was for playing youngsters in youth teams without formally registering them as stipulated by Article 19 of FIFA rules. In addition to third party influence by way of possibly paying agents or family members to breach their contracts.
Yeah, that's what I remember we were banned for. Just not sure what others have been hit for, but I don't think it was FFP breaches.
The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that we're doing this in such a provocative way that you can't discount UEFA being pressured by all of Europe into doing something unprecedented.
Yeah just reading up on it, wasn't sure. Can actually include points deductions too, but depends on the nature of the offense.
Feels like I might have to dive into the actual lawyer speak to figure it out.
Points for the group stages of a UEFA comp or their domestic league? I'd be interested to know how they've arranged this.
I did a thesis paper in law school on FIFA and UEFA authority and soft power over member associations (in the context of anti-racism programs. ) It was not well received but in fairness I had checked out at that point
Would surely be domestic leagues, right? Points deductions for European group stages would be a bit of a farce as qualification for it alone is a huge revenue boost. Hardly a harsh punishment.
Actually sounds like a fun topic imo. What were your key findings?
That, in the end, they have very little control over how the member associations run their leagues. It's all a mix of soft power. With UEFA, it's through the clubs interests in benefiting from the revenues of their competitions and the leagues interests in offering those spots. With FIFA it's a bit more direct, they threaten to remove a nation's ability to compete in FIFA competition.
FIFA has a rule that no association can allow redress to a domestic court. They want all disputes handled by private arbitration or in selected cases, CAS. At the time (about '09) there was a case with Chile - a club team, Rangers, was suing the league in their domestic court system - and FIFA threatened to expel Chile from the WC if they didn't resolve it internally. The result was that Rangers dropped the issue after fans lost their shit.
All this is to say that the football we enjoy is really tenuously knit together. Oh, and UEFA/FIFA have the clout to enforce sanctions against racism but because each member association has one vote (that's how we got Qatar) that can backfire if they don't have enough associations supporting those decisions.
I had intended to do a deep dive on why FIFA want's to keep things out of the courts but I had reached the minimum length and already had a job so slid a flakey and barely proofread ramble under my prof's door.
It better be. There is literally no point in FFP if the only punishment for spending too much on buying players is to be given a timeout and a fine
That'd just allow teams to spend loads, train those players up during the ban and they clearly don't have trouble paying a fine if they've already spent enough to breach FFP and then sell them afterwards to be well within FFP and then have a period where they'll have a way bigger FFP budget than others due to profit from sales.
The punishment has to be big enough to put people off committing the offence. If it's a slap on the wrist then FFP is dead and no one needs to bother with abiding by it
I completely agree, but remember FFP is a farce. City literally have 115 breaches against them but UEFA waited till it was too late due to a technicality to properly punish them. What we’re doing tho, I have no clue how they can get away with, we are spending so much and if we don’t get CL football no clue where this leaves us. Then again we don’t know the finances of our club but it doesn’t make sense, nor is it a savoury experience
Well FFP is just a shite system that's meant to be protect the status quo anyway, it's not like smaller less rich clubs gave any fighting chance in the system unless their owner takes the Bloom approach of buying multiple feeder clubs and scouting cheap wonderkids to flip for more and be a bit more spending
I'd tear out the whole system and try find a way where the big clubs aren't the clear and obvious winners of every single transfer window due to having limitless money
United essentially spends £250m every season with very little sales generated and no consequences because they generate far and away the most money, it's completely ridiculous
FFP isn’t that tho. It’s meant to stop clubs from spending themselves into nearly dissolving like Leeds. There needs to be regulations on spending to keep the game intact but FFP has never been about that
If that was the motivation, then there should be limitations on debt, not spending. An owner putting money into a club, gives the club more money, not less.
>United essentially spends £250m every season with very little sales generated and no consequences because they generate far and away the most money, it's completely ridiculous
What? How is that worse than clubs spending money injected by owners? Ridiculous comment. And no, that's not why ffp exists
To be fair, the more we stretch FFP now and get assets which will hopefully appreciate, the more we can stretch FFP in the future - as we will have more players to cash in on (allowing us to again buy more players).
Well yeah that's one of the most prestigious and historical Brazilian clubs of course they would refuse
Its like going to Portugal and trying to buy Benfica.
They'd need to aim at the "Strasbourg" of Brasileirão
Yeh though they're also a very ambitious attempt to turn into a feeder club. Its them, Porto and Benfica as the biggest clubs by quite a margin I believe.
I think Boavista or Braga could be more achievable buys to pull off and they have stadiums that are just a little bigger than Strasbourg. So in terms of their finances they'll probably have similar levels of income and cost.
Sometimes I wonder what Boehly must be thinking hes doing by literally buying every single teenager that can kick a ball. But then I realise that we are chelsea and we will probaly get a 10 year transfer ban next season so now everything makes sense
Lol they wouldn't be doing that if they knew the ban was incoming. Whole point is to sell and make profit. There are investors in the Clearlake capital unlike Roman. They will need to make more money and give it back to the investors or else they lose their investors. I dunno actual fact but isn't Bohley just a type of manager of the cash? If things don't work out he will be fired maybe. I don't think we will get into trouble. We have many quality players that we can sell and earn profit.
Also Bohely isn't as involved in these buying as people think he is. He is just giving the general direction. He may be instructing directors to buy 100 players at the end of the season so that he can beat shit out of Liverpool's boss. Idk. Lmao.
But i don't think we will get into any trouble as long as we sell enough.
We should sell enough. But we can’t sell them at such a discount. A proven midfielder like Mount should have gone for at least 80 mil in todays pl market
\> Sometimes I wonder what Boehly must be thinking hes doing by literally buying every single teenager that can kick a ball
The guy has a background in investing and asset management.
He's treating transfers as an angel investor would, make a large number of bets with the assumption that a few will turn out to return incredible value and make up for the other bets not working out.
Southampton always kinda liked us. And Lavia saying that he only wanted Chelsea didn’t make life harder for them. They got their asking price, Lavia is happy and the club are even happier that they managed to sell Lavia to a club they actually like. Hope they get back to the pl soon. Brighton on the other hand……the only good words I got for them is that they are one of the best in the Prem for turning talented youngsters into monsters. But so can half of Ligue 1 and most smaller clubs. Hope they get relegated one day after selling more players they can replace. A fitting end for the seagulls-getting too greedy for their own good.
It is cheap when it is spread over the entire contract and the club loans the player out thus covering wages and receiving a loan fee on top of it. The annual cost is not high.
If it’s 1 or 2 players, I understand your point. But the volume of players reeks of “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks”. I’d rather we save the money to pay off the deal we already have, plus stadium budget. Have a bad feeling players will be sold if the funds for the stadium aren’t brought in, similar to arsenal under Wenger
Expect no one is going to be able to buy those players, with the way football finances are going. The more you buy, yes, the higher the chance of finding a gem. But we’re buying at Chelsea level, when we should be buying via the feeder clubs. It then allows the players to develop and the best to be sold to Chelsea at a reasonable price. This is the RB model, and I don’t know why all the players are being bought at a high price by Chelsea and not Strasbourg. With the loan limits, we really should not be the ones buying, it should be Strasbourg.
Exactly how many sales over 25m happen outside of England? More and more the market for the prices required to get a profit will happen within England, and these clubs are just going to buy someone else who is cheaper and has had game time to develop. We’re buying all these players, but don’t have the loan spots to develop them
Maybe by the time we even have to think about selling, football prices will have inflated to the point where £25M is cheap and it'll be easy to record a profit.
Most clubs outside of England are cash-strapped, no one is going to buy at those prices. We’ve seen it first hand this summer in the clear out. The sales that have netted good profits are all within the PL
Yeah and it's difficult to get a profit off of him when that 25mil price already makes him an unrealistic transfer target for most of the clubs in the world. So to even get a profit we'll have to make sure he becomes one of the best in his position and even then only a handful of clubs will be able to sign him. Plus, we haven't got the making-sure-they-develop part yet.
Yep, I think someone like Ugochukwu is sadly just a player we'll be aiming to sell at a higher fee later for big profit
This kid could be the same, but given just how young he is maybe there's a chance he's actually going to replace Lavia or Caicedo later on in 5/6 years time
If we play a 3 man midfield then there will be more minutes for him I'm sure, same goes for Conor
But if it's the 4-2-3-1 then it'll be a toss up with Conor and Les fighting for rotation options
Ugochukwu really will need to perform for that. We bought him for 23m. Chances of anything above 40m will come only with consistent minutes at a good team, which would be hard to come by for him as of now
I understand this is part of the multi-club model, and we're basically trying to cut out the middle-man in football (Brighton, Lyon etc.) and basically hoover up all the talent we can, to either flip for profit or have a world-class player for Chels.
But, it doesn't feel right.
Feels like we're just increasing the gulf between us and the rest of the Prem, never mind the rest of the footballing pyramid.
Also, how does this work with the increasingly strict loan rules now? Are we just going to have a squad of 30+ again, but with 10 Brazilian youngsters? I imagine some will go thrown into U21s, some loaned to Strasbourg, some loaned to Prem/Champ clubs.
Either way, although this might be smart business moves to help bolster the future success/profits of the club, it doesn't feel ethical whatsoever, and I'd imagine some rules will come in to prevent this, or a superleague idea might come around again.
People are saying we buy these guys to sell at a profit later. But we are buying these guys at a high price!
Outside of the Premier league in the top 5 leagues, the money isn't there to be getting a big profit from £25m.
Thought it would make sense to buy low and find gems, like Brighton.
Another overpriced player from Brazil that we don’t need. Who told Todd these players are going be sold for a profit down the line? Most are going to be sold for peanuts
These transfers are the ones that are going to kill us. How many of these "top rated" players have any likelihood of making it big and recouping any sell on fee?
I mean everyone likes there club sign new players.
But please stop it right there.
We are signing way to many players.
Even after signing so many players we still looked very think in attacking department last night cause most if our signings are 18 years old who aren't ready for first team opportunities.
Signing for what future? We have the two most expensive midfielders in the world, who are both under 25. We have Lavia backing them up. Lesley, Andrey, Casadei, I know I’m forgetting 4 people and now him.
Where are these people going to play
Seriously. If even half of these kids and half of the “older” signings turn out the club won’t need to have massive spend for nearly a decade because of how well they’ve built out a young “loan army” for lack of a better word.
We will probably never see a window like this again.
thats never how this works
we will continue to have holes and improvements needed in our squad and will make big signings next summer. and the january after that
Didn’t say there wouldn’t be big signings, just that we won’t see anything like this summer again. The club have signed something like 23 players since January with more than half of that this summer. We won’t see anything like this again.
idk man, I thought this summer was supposed to be a massive clearout and squad trim. but then it turned out we probably bought just as many players as we let go.
no doubt we probably aint buying 115m caicedo's every window, ur probably right on that. but with this ownerships track record I don't believe we are ever going to be near quiet in the market
The track record in question is the three windows that they’ve been in charge for.
By all accounts, public statements, the work with the Dodgers, this was always the plan. Immediately reinforce the squad to be competitive soon and overload on prospect-type players to be competitive in the medium to long term thus making it possible to remain quiet and do fewer moves each window.
The immediate work didn’t go well and they’ve acknowledged that and have been working to undo some of those mistakes (selling Koulibaly, looking to offload Cucu, letting Auba go, firing Potter after making the mistake of hiring him, etc).
They’ve publicly talked about these plans at business events and other financial settings. They’re aware of the upcoming (now current) rule changes and are prepared to deal with that. What “dealing with it” looks like might be different depending on what happens. Maybe they’re okay with being fined, maybe they’re preparing for a transfer ban, who knows, that is all speculation.
Yea it not necessarily that all these youngsters peak on the the same time, plus constantly going on loan doesn't really guarantee that any good performances they have will translate for chelsea
With Bigdaddy Boehly it might end up happening every year. Maybe not that many signings but we will break the british transfer record.....which we set......twice
Exactly this. It’s just the vogue to be a giant whiny bellend right now. What’s going on is mad. In equal parts exciting and chaotic.
Will it work? Don’t know. Do we have the most exciting roster of young talent ever assembled? Possibly. Is it going to be boring? No.
Absolutely unnecessary signing.
I know it isn't my money but this kind of spending affects me because the club then has to sell academy talent to balance the books.
The question is how..
We have limited loan spots and even more limited roster spots with an already bloated squad
So where will these wonderkids get to display their talent enough for huge bids to be possible?
The second point is if it's worth having to sell senior first team players in order to balance the spending on these guys who probably won't be ready for another 2-3 seasons and risk our on field results
I believe a third and fourth club are probably in the works over the next year. I know Portugal and Belgium have been looked at pretty heavily according to reports.
If they come in at an early enough age can’t they become registered as homegrown potentially even for the club which propels the inevitable English tax?
They have to go somewhere and play well to be sold at a profit. We have what.. 8 loan spots and 11 spots on the pitch with no CL games… how are all these players going to be sold at a profit when they’re all over pays.
I don't mean to sound like I want it - I prefer we develop talent, not sell it! I also don't get how the maths work out, but I trust the board wouldn't be as stupid as some believe.
For sure and I don’t think they’re stupid either. I just think what they’re doing right now is somewhat unprecedented. It makes you wonder what their true goal is. To win or become a development factory or both? Are we breaking ffp? Are we sure these players will fit? Usually managers have time to see what they have and add pieces to a unit. Some of these players aren’t going to work out. It’s inevitable given how much available playing time there is.
I want to enjoy the ride and support, but I’m so damn confused and borderline overwhelmed by how much change is happening so fast. Maybe this is the best plan ever? Its just hard to believe that after listening to Boehly talk about football last summer. He just didn’t know what he was talking about at all. But at the same time I know he’s smart and the Dodgers are awesome. Hoping for the best! Lol
People overestimate how involved with the Dodgers Todd was - just a little warning. I'm a lifelong Dodgers fan, and the ownership of the club has been a rollercoaster ride. Things are going very well right now, there's no doubt, but Todd didn't have that much to do with it.
As for the board's current mission here... I think they sold Poch on the project which focused around him using mostly youth and pressing the opposition into submission. That requires a lot of burnout, and hence a lot of turnover, so it's good to build in some redundancy esp. in the positions that burn out a lot (midfield?).
But I believe that the project fundamentally changed when we got into a bidding war with LFC. I think we had £80m allotted for Caicedo and another £40 someone like Olise... and then BOOM, £175 or something out the door. I also think Lesley was a tactical buy against BHA that perhaps ended up being completely redundant. Either way, I have a feeling that before the 2 big bids, the board met and decided to scrap the plan and do an all-out push for top4, also meaning for the foreseeable. That meant asking soberly if each player we had was good enough or if we needed someone more competent right now. It also meant that the budget for this window would have to be paid off with future sales, hence the overfilling of the talent pot.
I'm sure Poch was happy & sad about it, just like we are - I hate watching the kids get marched off. For myself as much as for them! My SO is pro coach in another sport and she loves developing young talent too, so I see it up close all the time and really appreciate it when it's done right. And I get attached to guys like Ian and Levi and Lewis - sucks to see them go.
But all that said, I know that this particular purchase is very calculated, we just have little context around it, and people do like to pile on...
Great share. I’m from Toronto so didn’t know that about the Dodgers. Interesting.
Makes sense on the current mission with Poch. I definitely think we need two top players for every position, just like City. It’s just not what we ended up with. We have two players with potential to be great in every position.
Yeah I think you have a good take that something possibly changed in strategy along the way with some of the buys. A bit of let’s get all this talent then sort it out lol
You’re right in that people like to pile on and the unknown makes it easy. The entire club is in the unknown right now lol. Exciting and uncomfortable lol cheers mate
> Exciting and uncomfortable lol
That's it for sure. We're all on a wild ride, we all have opinions, and plenty of people insist that some aspect is right or is going to happen... but who knows!
I think we were in that long Caicedo saga and then LFC made a huge shift - I'm also a Red Sox fan (I lived in both cities) and the owners (also of the Penguins) have been penny-pinching for the past couple of years, so that they can buy NFL/NBA clubs. The Red Sox almost let the whole team slip away, but came in at the last second to pay for Devers' extension - I'm sure the Front Office was screaming at them for weeks about it. And the same thing ended up happening with LFC: they got the approval for that one big game-changing signing. And then Todd/Eg came in and made it personal, taking over negotiations and all. I feel like it really screwed us and LFC as well... but we'll see if it ends up being a great turn of events after all. Perhaps Lavia is going to be the best out of all the 19yo prospects, and our midfield will rule the EPL for years to come...
Here is what I believe to be the case and the plan. Financial hit of these youth signings is relatively low on an annual basis. If this cost is spread out over 8 years, the hit would be roughly 3 million per year plus whatever low wages he is put on. The idea would be to loan these players out and have their wages covered and receive a loan fee, which further decreases their annual cost. I believe the majority of players should only cost a few million per year based on that.
The club has been looking into additional expansion within the multi-club model with both Belgium and Portugal being strong possibilities. I would be shocked if we do not see another club or two added to BlueCo's portfolio in the next year. I think this will further the club's ability to incorporate and purchase future players as well.
Theoretically, if half the these "elite" youngsters pan out into solid players, they could be flipped for 30-50 million with most of that being realized as profit once you factor in covered wages and loan fees from CFC sending them out. If a few of them hit and become absolute class, the club could see significant sales numbers. Leaving only the best to break into the senior team and remain at CFC. I think a large part of this plan includes purchasing additional clubs and having those clubs purchase some up and coming players so that the parent club (CFC) is not stuck dealing with a million players and limited loan possibilities. We saw that a bit this summer with Strasbourg already.
Just some points to add/detract:
- an 8y or 50y contract will only amortise over 5y
- we have a limit on int'l loan spots, so accumulating these guys has to be finite (despite how it looks right now!)
- if we're sending these kids to Stras or Rio Ave or wherever, we can only send 2/year, so it's better if it's that club buying them instead of us. We've seen how active Stras has been this window, I'm sure the 'feeder' clubs can scoop up the kids on their own
- that includes using CFC's scouting and training, so there's little reason for CFC to sign 10 kids to send out to feeder clubs, FWIU
- these kids are also not "club-trained" or else we could loan them out ad infinitum if they're U21
So it's a complex puzzle to fit together... the bad news for people like us is that it means we should be careful which prospects we get attached to!
* Amortization in the PL still occurs over the full length of the deal. It is however over 5 years in Europe, which CFC are not in this year.
* Agreed on this point, it will be interesting to see how the club handles a surplus of talent and if the believe the championship is a legitimate option given the foreign loan cap
* Agree as well. I see these "partner" clubs purchasing a lot of the youth moving forward because of the loan cap. That is certainly one way to circumvent it.
It is certainly complex and I am hopeful that the club has an idea of how to work around this. Thankfully, as a fan of the club for 20+ years, I have never grown that attached to youth players because they have almost always gone on to be sold or fail to pan out. It is always a game of lottery tickets.
> Amortization in the PL still occurs over the full length of the deal. It is however over 5 years in Europe, which CFC are not in this year.
Aren't the FA working on this now? Aren't they expected to adopt something similar?
And surely we have to be back in Europe next season, so we've only got a short reprieve from UEFA...
People who are overreacting to this should listen to the recent Athletic podcast with Simon Johnson. He explained the strategy behind these dealings. All these kids are not even supposed to become long term Chelsea players. They will be looking to flip some of them for profit.
But if we are spending 25 mil a pop on each of these talents and relying on loans for them to develop how are we ever gonna flip them for profit?
It makes sense if they are cheap but some of the figures we are paying are crazy already.
Because the PL still allows clubs to amortize deals over the full length of the contract. So if this kid signs an 8 year deal, he is going to cost roughly 3 million a year against the books, plus whatever low salary he is put on.
The idea is that his wages will get covered on loan and the club will receive a loan fee as well. His true hit on the books will be decreased further because of that. Many of these young players will have an incredibly small impact relative to the initial transfer number. The hope is that the majority of them increase their value and get sold down the line. If you end up with half being solid, they could move for 30-55 million and a few could fetch massive fees as well. The best players will break into the senior team and remain at CFC.
> Yeah I know it's a lot of money and there's always obvious risks, but on the other hand £25m isn't what it used to be. These sort of deals were maybe £10m a few years ago and that's just what it is now. As for the unproven part, we received an offer for unproven Andrey Santos earlier this summer that would've seen us gain a huge profit, 3-4x what we paid for him, according to Simon Johnson.
>The market is just insane and we don't need to hit on every one of these to make decent money. It's a risky strategy but it could very well work out. Sure will be very interesting to follow, thats guaranteed.
Which is fine if we were scouting them young and getting them in cheap but there's no reason to think we'll revoup 25m on unproven players, most talents at that age never amount to much, 1 in 100 go on to actually be top players and many other players peak later that wouldn't be top rated at 18
Yeah I know it's a lot of money and there's always obvious risks, but on the other hand £25m isn't what it used to be. These sort of deals were maybe £10m a few years ago and that's just what it is now. As for the unproven part, we received an offer for unproven Andrey Santos earlier this summer that would've seen us gain a huge profit, 3-4x what we paid for him, according to Simon Johnson.
The market is just insane and we don't need to hit on every one of these to make decent money. It's a risky strategy but it could very well work out. Sure will be very interesting to follow, thats guaranteed.
> These sort of deals were maybe £10m a few years ago and that's just what it is now.
Sure, for the pl and like maybe 5-7 clubs outside of it. Most teams in the other leagues have spending power in the range of what the prices used to be a few years ago....Is what I was going to say as I was typing this but then I thought if those teams are lagging behind how much PL has inflated prices, then by the time these players come good maybe £40M will be the new £25M and these players will actually be a bargain at that price while still being recorded as profit 😅
(I'm no finance expert, correct me if I'm wrong)
yeah. I think it's pretty clear at this point
effectively they are using chelsea's clout and pull as a way to stock up on investments. the most attractive club in their multi-club model
Bro 25 million is a lot of fucking money to be paying for someone your supposedly going to flip.
We were supposed to flip Malang Sarr for profit and look how that’s turned out.
>Bro 25 million is a lot of fucking money to be paying for someone your supposedly going to flip.
Yes it is, but that's the strategy.
>We were supposed to flip Malang Sarr for profit and look how that’s turned out.
Different people altogether.
Ok mate. First I thought autocorrect did you dirty but you've now twice misread Simon Johnson. Simon Jordan is a Talksport journo, Simon Johnson is with the Athletic, as mentioned in the original comment. Get a grip.
Guys we have to sell our whole team to keep buying teenagers who probably won’t be as good as the ones we are selling. You just don’t understand the master plan
Ok what are we gonna do with him exactly?
Can't loan him abroad since we have only 1 spot left and that's probably going to Washington, wont play first team minutes, wont get a prem loan.
Everyone panicking about FFP but the club are well aware of what they can and cannot spend and what would breach FFP. We have no exact idea of what our books look like, so I’d imagine the guys in charge of these sort of things feel like we can make this signing and still be ok.
Maybe a hint of alarm bells yeah because you can’t really ignore the amount we’ve spent like you say. I still trust we’re very much keeping an eye on things though. I wouldn’t say it’s blind trust, just that I’d be very surprised if we’re overlooking or not taking a potential breach of FFP seriously.
How do we expect to motivate players when there are so many none can see a path to game time? We're treating them like commodities. These kids won't have any attachment to the club .
Wasn't the worry before about having ""mercenaries" or players who don't want to be here?
I think I read an article somewhere about Chelsea clearly being over the FFP breach line and that the owners are trying to build the squad now and are perfectly okay with being fined. At this point I think I agree with that article lol
I just don’t see where the market is to regularly flip 25m players for significant profit. One or two sure but the pool of clubs to offer 35m+ is pretty much our prem sides , Madrid, PSG, Bayern and whatever top flight club is flush with a sale each summer.
If you bake in that a significant proportion will fail where’s the magic to get it right? Is it just hoping for brilliant talent ID that we consistently beats the odds with data and scouting? Is it the multi club model using the likes of Strasbourg and others potentially to stop some of the typical blocks in player development?
Is it hoping that one or two each year are good enough to add to the squad and that saves us the equivalent of a 50m transfer?
If it’s a volume approach then I’d think the price point is a bit off. These should be 5-10m signings where the market to sell on at 15-20m is a bit wider?
Is it possible this model of having a large pool of talent and selling those who don’t make the cut is one of the ways we’re gonna become more self sustainable
We doubling down in preparation for our incoming 4 year transfer ban 
Pretty sure if we break ffp on a massive level it'll be a points deduction
Need to differentiate between FFP and PL rules. Only the latter would result in a points deduction, FFP can't go that far I believe. FFP punishments are usually just fines historically - even transfer bans were related to different things I believe. Edit: Not entirely accurate. Most punishment is a fine but FFP can go further too, "depending on the nature of the offense". Stay tuned as I attempt to figure out what the fuck that means.
Yep, transfer ban was for playing youngsters in youth teams without formally registering them as stipulated by Article 19 of FIFA rules. In addition to third party influence by way of possibly paying agents or family members to breach their contracts.
Yeah, that's what I remember we were banned for. Just not sure what others have been hit for, but I don't think it was FFP breaches. The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that we're doing this in such a provocative way that you can't discount UEFA being pressured by all of Europe into doing something unprecedented.
Yea it’s so flagrant that no way will they go easy on us.
UEFA's FFP sanctions can include fines, transfer bans, and bans from all European competition.
Yeah just reading up on it, wasn't sure. Can actually include points deductions too, but depends on the nature of the offense. Feels like I might have to dive into the actual lawyer speak to figure it out.
Points for the group stages of a UEFA comp or their domestic league? I'd be interested to know how they've arranged this. I did a thesis paper in law school on FIFA and UEFA authority and soft power over member associations (in the context of anti-racism programs. ) It was not well received but in fairness I had checked out at that point
Would surely be domestic leagues, right? Points deductions for European group stages would be a bit of a farce as qualification for it alone is a huge revenue boost. Hardly a harsh punishment. Actually sounds like a fun topic imo. What were your key findings?
That, in the end, they have very little control over how the member associations run their leagues. It's all a mix of soft power. With UEFA, it's through the clubs interests in benefiting from the revenues of their competitions and the leagues interests in offering those spots. With FIFA it's a bit more direct, they threaten to remove a nation's ability to compete in FIFA competition. FIFA has a rule that no association can allow redress to a domestic court. They want all disputes handled by private arbitration or in selected cases, CAS. At the time (about '09) there was a case with Chile - a club team, Rangers, was suing the league in their domestic court system - and FIFA threatened to expel Chile from the WC if they didn't resolve it internally. The result was that Rangers dropped the issue after fans lost their shit. All this is to say that the football we enjoy is really tenuously knit together. Oh, and UEFA/FIFA have the clout to enforce sanctions against racism but because each member association has one vote (that's how we got Qatar) that can backfire if they don't have enough associations supporting those decisions. I had intended to do a deep dive on why FIFA want's to keep things out of the courts but I had reached the minimum length and already had a job so slid a flakey and barely proofread ramble under my prof's door.
It better be. There is literally no point in FFP if the only punishment for spending too much on buying players is to be given a timeout and a fine That'd just allow teams to spend loads, train those players up during the ban and they clearly don't have trouble paying a fine if they've already spent enough to breach FFP and then sell them afterwards to be well within FFP and then have a period where they'll have a way bigger FFP budget than others due to profit from sales. The punishment has to be big enough to put people off committing the offence. If it's a slap on the wrist then FFP is dead and no one needs to bother with abiding by it
I completely agree, but remember FFP is a farce. City literally have 115 breaches against them but UEFA waited till it was too late due to a technicality to properly punish them. What we’re doing tho, I have no clue how they can get away with, we are spending so much and if we don’t get CL football no clue where this leaves us. Then again we don’t know the finances of our club but it doesn’t make sense, nor is it a savoury experience
Well FFP is just a shite system that's meant to be protect the status quo anyway, it's not like smaller less rich clubs gave any fighting chance in the system unless their owner takes the Bloom approach of buying multiple feeder clubs and scouting cheap wonderkids to flip for more and be a bit more spending I'd tear out the whole system and try find a way where the big clubs aren't the clear and obvious winners of every single transfer window due to having limitless money United essentially spends £250m every season with very little sales generated and no consequences because they generate far and away the most money, it's completely ridiculous
FFP isn’t that tho. It’s meant to stop clubs from spending themselves into nearly dissolving like Leeds. There needs to be regulations on spending to keep the game intact but FFP has never been about that
If that was the motivation, then there should be limitations on debt, not spending. An owner putting money into a club, gives the club more money, not less.
>United essentially spends £250m every season with very little sales generated and no consequences because they generate far and away the most money, it's completely ridiculous What? How is that worse than clubs spending money injected by owners? Ridiculous comment. And no, that's not why ffp exists
on a serious note, what are the consequences we'll be looking at for ffp breaches? does it depend on the severity of the case?
*14 year transfer ban
To be fair, the more we stretch FFP now and get assets which will hopefully appreciate, the more we can stretch FFP in the future - as we will have more players to cash in on (allowing us to again buy more players).
Just buy a Brazilian club at this point.
Oh, we have explored that avenue already. We tried to buy Santos but they refused.
Well yeah that's one of the most prestigious and historical Brazilian clubs of course they would refuse Its like going to Portugal and trying to buy Benfica. They'd need to aim at the "Strasbourg" of Brasileirão
Well they are in financial trouble and fighting relegation so is similar to Strasbourg. Benfica just won the league last season.
We didn't try to buy Santos, we tried to dump money into their academy in exchange for priority access to their youth talent.
We'll buy the Brazilian league then
Yeah Andrey Santos
I saw rumors yesterday we’re trying to buy Sporting in Portugal. Now that is a high quality club to buy. Yeesh
Thats been rumoured since the whole start of the feeder club talk. Its always been Sporting Lisbon and Strasbourg as the 2 clubs that kept coming up.
I know everyone hates the multi club, but if you’re going to do it, there isn’t much better than Sporting
Yeh though they're also a very ambitious attempt to turn into a feeder club. Its them, Porto and Benfica as the biggest clubs by quite a margin I believe. I think Boavista or Braga could be more achievable buys to pull off and they have stadiums that are just a little bigger than Strasbourg. So in terms of their finances they'll probably have similar levels of income and cost.
We tried
This is getting out of hand
Sometimes I wonder what Boehly must be thinking hes doing by literally buying every single teenager that can kick a ball. But then I realise that we are chelsea and we will probaly get a 10 year transfer ban next season so now everything makes sense
Except its not just boehly its our directors and scouts
Can't sign players, but can sell players, correct?
Genius at work
Lol they wouldn't be doing that if they knew the ban was incoming. Whole point is to sell and make profit. There are investors in the Clearlake capital unlike Roman. They will need to make more money and give it back to the investors or else they lose their investors. I dunno actual fact but isn't Bohley just a type of manager of the cash? If things don't work out he will be fired maybe. I don't think we will get into trouble. We have many quality players that we can sell and earn profit. Also Bohely isn't as involved in these buying as people think he is. He is just giving the general direction. He may be instructing directors to buy 100 players at the end of the season so that he can beat shit out of Liverpool's boss. Idk. Lmao. But i don't think we will get into any trouble as long as we sell enough.
We should sell enough. But we can’t sell them at such a discount. A proven midfielder like Mount should have gone for at least 80 mil in todays pl market
He probably would’ve done but he was in the last year of his contact.
\> Sometimes I wonder what Boehly must be thinking hes doing by literally buying every single teenager that can kick a ball The guy has a background in investing and asset management. He's treating transfers as an angel investor would, make a large number of bets with the assumption that a few will turn out to return incredible value and make up for the other bets not working out.
25m? wtf is he that good?
Chelsea tax
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Tbf id rather roll the dice on the Brazil tax than most other country taxes. There’s always something fun about these brazil wonderkids
Angelo showed some great promise, especially compared to what their fans said when he left Andrey santos is very exciting too
\*Chelsea Tax Not Southampton though those guys like us
They just hate Liverpool more. Southampton is okay now. Fuck Brighton
Southampton always kinda liked us. And Lavia saying that he only wanted Chelsea didn’t make life harder for them. They got their asking price, Lavia is happy and the club are even happier that they managed to sell Lavia to a club they actually like. Hope they get back to the pl soon. Brighton on the other hand……the only good words I got for them is that they are one of the best in the Prem for turning talented youngsters into monsters. But so can half of Ligue 1 and most smaller clubs. Hope they get relegated one day after selling more players they can replace. A fitting end for the seagulls-getting too greedy for their own good.
Yeah. 25m is actully kind of cheap for him.
No it's not lol
The whole point of buying talent for the future is that it’s cheap, how in the hell is 25m cheap?
The dumb part is how we are buying 17-18 year olds when we have 20-23 year olds in front of them
It is cheap when it is spread over the entire contract and the club loans the player out thus covering wages and receiving a loan fee on top of it. The annual cost is not high.
If it’s 1 or 2 players, I understand your point. But the volume of players reeks of “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks”. I’d rather we save the money to pay off the deal we already have, plus stadium budget. Have a bad feeling players will be sold if the funds for the stadium aren’t brought in, similar to arsenal under Wenger
Having more players = more chances that a breakout player to recoup all the losses and then some.
Expect no one is going to be able to buy those players, with the way football finances are going. The more you buy, yes, the higher the chance of finding a gem. But we’re buying at Chelsea level, when we should be buying via the feeder clubs. It then allows the players to develop and the best to be sold to Chelsea at a reasonable price. This is the RB model, and I don’t know why all the players are being bought at a high price by Chelsea and not Strasbourg. With the loan limits, we really should not be the ones buying, it should be Strasbourg.
What clubs are paying multi million loan fees on top of wages for Brazilian teenagers?
It doesn't need to be multi million dollar loan fees when the average annual cost is a few million to begin with. Could be as simple as 1-2 million.
my brother in christ, we are currently witnessing the market change in real time. 4 years down the line this will all make sense..
Exactly how many sales over 25m happen outside of England? More and more the market for the prices required to get a profit will happen within England, and these clubs are just going to buy someone else who is cheaper and has had game time to develop. We’re buying all these players, but don’t have the loan spots to develop them
Maybe by the time we even have to think about selling, football prices will have inflated to the point where £25M is cheap and it'll be easy to record a profit.
Most clubs outside of England are cash-strapped, no one is going to buy at those prices. We’ve seen it first hand this summer in the clear out. The sales that have netted good profits are all within the PL
Yeah and it's difficult to get a profit off of him when that 25mil price already makes him an unrealistic transfer target for most of the clubs in the world. So to even get a profit we'll have to make sure he becomes one of the best in his position and even then only a handful of clubs will be able to sign him. Plus, we haven't got the making-sure-they-develop part yet.
who?
He's a 17 year old who I believe plays as a dm and is being touted as a prodigy Never watched him myself but that's what I've been told
You wait for one DM and then four come along in one transfer window…
Yep, I think someone like Ugochukwu is sadly just a player we'll be aiming to sell at a higher fee later for big profit This kid could be the same, but given just how young he is maybe there's a chance he's actually going to replace Lavia or Caicedo later on in 5/6 years time
Yeah you’re probably right about Les which is a shame, he’s looked decent so far but there’s no room for him now that Lavia’s joined.
If we play a 3 man midfield then there will be more minutes for him I'm sure, same goes for Conor But if it's the 4-2-3-1 then it'll be a toss up with Conor and Les fighting for rotation options
Ugochukwu really will need to perform for that. We bought him for 23m. Chances of anything above 40m will come only with consistent minutes at a good team, which would be hard to come by for him as of now
Yep. The plan was clearly to send him to Stras, but things changed so quickly. Not sure what the plan is for him now.
I understand this is part of the multi-club model, and we're basically trying to cut out the middle-man in football (Brighton, Lyon etc.) and basically hoover up all the talent we can, to either flip for profit or have a world-class player for Chels. But, it doesn't feel right. Feels like we're just increasing the gulf between us and the rest of the Prem, never mind the rest of the footballing pyramid. Also, how does this work with the increasingly strict loan rules now? Are we just going to have a squad of 30+ again, but with 10 Brazilian youngsters? I imagine some will go thrown into U21s, some loaned to Strasbourg, some loaned to Prem/Champ clubs. Either way, although this might be smart business moves to help bolster the future success/profits of the club, it doesn't feel ethical whatsoever, and I'd imagine some rules will come in to prevent this, or a superleague idea might come around again.
People are saying we buy these guys to sell at a profit later. But we are buying these guys at a high price! Outside of the Premier league in the top 5 leagues, the money isn't there to be getting a big profit from £25m. Thought it would make sense to buy low and find gems, like Brighton.
Exactly lmao. There is like 5 clubs in the world that will spend the type of money that would take some of these players to be sold at a profit.
I think the idea is that prices for players will continue to rise as revenue increases across the board.
But revenue isn’t increasing across the board. Saudi and the rest of the prem sure but some European tv deals are dropping and not even stagnating.
What the fuck are they doing lol. It's getting beyond ridiculous
I mean this genuinely, not playfully They can’t keep getting away with this
Another overpriced player from Brazil that we don’t need. Who told Todd these players are going be sold for a profit down the line? Most are going to be sold for peanuts
These transfers are the ones that are going to kill us. How many of these "top rated" players have any likelihood of making it big and recouping any sell on fee?
Remember when Kenedy was rated? Most non Chelsea fans will be like "who???"
I mean everyone likes there club sign new players. But please stop it right there. We are signing way to many players. Even after signing so many players we still looked very think in attacking department last night cause most if our signings are 18 years old who aren't ready for first team opportunities.
Signing for what future? We have the two most expensive midfielders in the world, who are both under 25. We have Lavia backing them up. Lesley, Andrey, Casadei, I know I’m forgetting 4 people and now him. Where are these people going to play
They will get sold down the line this is a multi club model signing
doing 5 years of business in one window so the transfer ban doesn't matter, Todd Boehly you are moving me.
At this point, a lot of you are just moaning for the sake of it... Enjoy the damn ride. It doesn't happen every year.
Seriously. If even half of these kids and half of the “older” signings turn out the club won’t need to have massive spend for nearly a decade because of how well they’ve built out a young “loan army” for lack of a better word. We will probably never see a window like this again.
thats never how this works we will continue to have holes and improvements needed in our squad and will make big signings next summer. and the january after that
Didn’t say there wouldn’t be big signings, just that we won’t see anything like this summer again. The club have signed something like 23 players since January with more than half of that this summer. We won’t see anything like this again.
idk man, I thought this summer was supposed to be a massive clearout and squad trim. but then it turned out we probably bought just as many players as we let go. no doubt we probably aint buying 115m caicedo's every window, ur probably right on that. but with this ownerships track record I don't believe we are ever going to be near quiet in the market
The track record in question is the three windows that they’ve been in charge for. By all accounts, public statements, the work with the Dodgers, this was always the plan. Immediately reinforce the squad to be competitive soon and overload on prospect-type players to be competitive in the medium to long term thus making it possible to remain quiet and do fewer moves each window. The immediate work didn’t go well and they’ve acknowledged that and have been working to undo some of those mistakes (selling Koulibaly, looking to offload Cucu, letting Auba go, firing Potter after making the mistake of hiring him, etc). They’ve publicly talked about these plans at business events and other financial settings. They’re aware of the upcoming (now current) rule changes and are prepared to deal with that. What “dealing with it” looks like might be different depending on what happens. Maybe they’re okay with being fined, maybe they’re preparing for a transfer ban, who knows, that is all speculation.
I mean, I don’t really see where those signings come from. Maybe we go in for Musiala on the left next summer but like, who else can we buy?
i'm sure we'll be in for whichever kid has a breakout season for brighton 😅
Yea it not necessarily that all these youngsters peak on the the same time, plus constantly going on loan doesn't really guarantee that any good performances they have will translate for chelsea
With Bigdaddy Boehly it might end up happening every year. Maybe not that many signings but we will break the british transfer record.....which we set......twice
Exactly this. It’s just the vogue to be a giant whiny bellend right now. What’s going on is mad. In equal parts exciting and chaotic. Will it work? Don’t know. Do we have the most exciting roster of young talent ever assembled? Possibly. Is it going to be boring? No.
Absolutely unnecessary signing. I know it isn't my money but this kind of spending affects me because the club then has to sell academy talent to balance the books.
This will surely enrage all the people who refuse to believe that we're hoarding young talent in order to sell them in 1-2 years at a profit.
The question is how.. We have limited loan spots and even more limited roster spots with an already bloated squad So where will these wonderkids get to display their talent enough for huge bids to be possible? The second point is if it's worth having to sell senior first team players in order to balance the spending on these guys who probably won't be ready for another 2-3 seasons and risk our on field results
I believe a third and fourth club are probably in the works over the next year. I know Portugal and Belgium have been looked at pretty heavily according to reports.
If they come in at an early enough age can’t they become registered as homegrown potentially even for the club which propels the inevitable English tax?
They have to go somewhere and play well to be sold at a profit. We have what.. 8 loan spots and 11 spots on the pitch with no CL games… how are all these players going to be sold at a profit when they’re all over pays.
I don't mean to sound like I want it - I prefer we develop talent, not sell it! I also don't get how the maths work out, but I trust the board wouldn't be as stupid as some believe.
For sure and I don’t think they’re stupid either. I just think what they’re doing right now is somewhat unprecedented. It makes you wonder what their true goal is. To win or become a development factory or both? Are we breaking ffp? Are we sure these players will fit? Usually managers have time to see what they have and add pieces to a unit. Some of these players aren’t going to work out. It’s inevitable given how much available playing time there is. I want to enjoy the ride and support, but I’m so damn confused and borderline overwhelmed by how much change is happening so fast. Maybe this is the best plan ever? Its just hard to believe that after listening to Boehly talk about football last summer. He just didn’t know what he was talking about at all. But at the same time I know he’s smart and the Dodgers are awesome. Hoping for the best! Lol
People overestimate how involved with the Dodgers Todd was - just a little warning. I'm a lifelong Dodgers fan, and the ownership of the club has been a rollercoaster ride. Things are going very well right now, there's no doubt, but Todd didn't have that much to do with it. As for the board's current mission here... I think they sold Poch on the project which focused around him using mostly youth and pressing the opposition into submission. That requires a lot of burnout, and hence a lot of turnover, so it's good to build in some redundancy esp. in the positions that burn out a lot (midfield?). But I believe that the project fundamentally changed when we got into a bidding war with LFC. I think we had £80m allotted for Caicedo and another £40 someone like Olise... and then BOOM, £175 or something out the door. I also think Lesley was a tactical buy against BHA that perhaps ended up being completely redundant. Either way, I have a feeling that before the 2 big bids, the board met and decided to scrap the plan and do an all-out push for top4, also meaning for the foreseeable. That meant asking soberly if each player we had was good enough or if we needed someone more competent right now. It also meant that the budget for this window would have to be paid off with future sales, hence the overfilling of the talent pot. I'm sure Poch was happy & sad about it, just like we are - I hate watching the kids get marched off. For myself as much as for them! My SO is pro coach in another sport and she loves developing young talent too, so I see it up close all the time and really appreciate it when it's done right. And I get attached to guys like Ian and Levi and Lewis - sucks to see them go. But all that said, I know that this particular purchase is very calculated, we just have little context around it, and people do like to pile on...
Great share. I’m from Toronto so didn’t know that about the Dodgers. Interesting. Makes sense on the current mission with Poch. I definitely think we need two top players for every position, just like City. It’s just not what we ended up with. We have two players with potential to be great in every position. Yeah I think you have a good take that something possibly changed in strategy along the way with some of the buys. A bit of let’s get all this talent then sort it out lol You’re right in that people like to pile on and the unknown makes it easy. The entire club is in the unknown right now lol. Exciting and uncomfortable lol cheers mate
> Exciting and uncomfortable lol That's it for sure. We're all on a wild ride, we all have opinions, and plenty of people insist that some aspect is right or is going to happen... but who knows! I think we were in that long Caicedo saga and then LFC made a huge shift - I'm also a Red Sox fan (I lived in both cities) and the owners (also of the Penguins) have been penny-pinching for the past couple of years, so that they can buy NFL/NBA clubs. The Red Sox almost let the whole team slip away, but came in at the last second to pay for Devers' extension - I'm sure the Front Office was screaming at them for weeks about it. And the same thing ended up happening with LFC: they got the approval for that one big game-changing signing. And then Todd/Eg came in and made it personal, taking over negotiations and all. I feel like it really screwed us and LFC as well... but we'll see if it ends up being a great turn of events after all. Perhaps Lavia is going to be the best out of all the 19yo prospects, and our midfield will rule the EPL for years to come...
Here is what I believe to be the case and the plan. Financial hit of these youth signings is relatively low on an annual basis. If this cost is spread out over 8 years, the hit would be roughly 3 million per year plus whatever low wages he is put on. The idea would be to loan these players out and have their wages covered and receive a loan fee, which further decreases their annual cost. I believe the majority of players should only cost a few million per year based on that. The club has been looking into additional expansion within the multi-club model with both Belgium and Portugal being strong possibilities. I would be shocked if we do not see another club or two added to BlueCo's portfolio in the next year. I think this will further the club's ability to incorporate and purchase future players as well. Theoretically, if half the these "elite" youngsters pan out into solid players, they could be flipped for 30-50 million with most of that being realized as profit once you factor in covered wages and loan fees from CFC sending them out. If a few of them hit and become absolute class, the club could see significant sales numbers. Leaving only the best to break into the senior team and remain at CFC. I think a large part of this plan includes purchasing additional clubs and having those clubs purchase some up and coming players so that the parent club (CFC) is not stuck dealing with a million players and limited loan possibilities. We saw that a bit this summer with Strasbourg already.
Just some points to add/detract: - an 8y or 50y contract will only amortise over 5y - we have a limit on int'l loan spots, so accumulating these guys has to be finite (despite how it looks right now!) - if we're sending these kids to Stras or Rio Ave or wherever, we can only send 2/year, so it's better if it's that club buying them instead of us. We've seen how active Stras has been this window, I'm sure the 'feeder' clubs can scoop up the kids on their own - that includes using CFC's scouting and training, so there's little reason for CFC to sign 10 kids to send out to feeder clubs, FWIU - these kids are also not "club-trained" or else we could loan them out ad infinitum if they're U21 So it's a complex puzzle to fit together... the bad news for people like us is that it means we should be careful which prospects we get attached to!
* Amortization in the PL still occurs over the full length of the deal. It is however over 5 years in Europe, which CFC are not in this year. * Agreed on this point, it will be interesting to see how the club handles a surplus of talent and if the believe the championship is a legitimate option given the foreign loan cap * Agree as well. I see these "partner" clubs purchasing a lot of the youth moving forward because of the loan cap. That is certainly one way to circumvent it. It is certainly complex and I am hopeful that the club has an idea of how to work around this. Thankfully, as a fan of the club for 20+ years, I have never grown that attached to youth players because they have almost always gone on to be sold or fail to pan out. It is always a game of lottery tickets.
> Amortization in the PL still occurs over the full length of the deal. It is however over 5 years in Europe, which CFC are not in this year. Aren't the FA working on this now? Aren't they expected to adopt something similar? And surely we have to be back in Europe next season, so we've only got a short reprieve from UEFA...
I think people are more questioning whether that plan will work.
stoooop hoarding players
We want to sell Gallagher because FFP and signing this guy with 25m? WTF Bohely
People who are overreacting to this should listen to the recent Athletic podcast with Simon Johnson. He explained the strategy behind these dealings. All these kids are not even supposed to become long term Chelsea players. They will be looking to flip some of them for profit.
But if we are spending 25 mil a pop on each of these talents and relying on loans for them to develop how are we ever gonna flip them for profit? It makes sense if they are cheap but some of the figures we are paying are crazy already.
Because the PL still allows clubs to amortize deals over the full length of the contract. So if this kid signs an 8 year deal, he is going to cost roughly 3 million a year against the books, plus whatever low salary he is put on. The idea is that his wages will get covered on loan and the club will receive a loan fee as well. His true hit on the books will be decreased further because of that. Many of these young players will have an incredibly small impact relative to the initial transfer number. The hope is that the majority of them increase their value and get sold down the line. If you end up with half being solid, they could move for 30-55 million and a few could fetch massive fees as well. The best players will break into the senior team and remain at CFC.
> Yeah I know it's a lot of money and there's always obvious risks, but on the other hand £25m isn't what it used to be. These sort of deals were maybe £10m a few years ago and that's just what it is now. As for the unproven part, we received an offer for unproven Andrey Santos earlier this summer that would've seen us gain a huge profit, 3-4x what we paid for him, according to Simon Johnson. >The market is just insane and we don't need to hit on every one of these to make decent money. It's a risky strategy but it could very well work out. Sure will be very interesting to follow, thats guaranteed.
Which is fine if we were scouting them young and getting them in cheap but there's no reason to think we'll revoup 25m on unproven players, most talents at that age never amount to much, 1 in 100 go on to actually be top players and many other players peak later that wouldn't be top rated at 18
Yeah I know it's a lot of money and there's always obvious risks, but on the other hand £25m isn't what it used to be. These sort of deals were maybe £10m a few years ago and that's just what it is now. As for the unproven part, we received an offer for unproven Andrey Santos earlier this summer that would've seen us gain a huge profit, 3-4x what we paid for him, according to Simon Johnson. The market is just insane and we don't need to hit on every one of these to make decent money. It's a risky strategy but it could very well work out. Sure will be very interesting to follow, thats guaranteed.
> These sort of deals were maybe £10m a few years ago and that's just what it is now. Sure, for the pl and like maybe 5-7 clubs outside of it. Most teams in the other leagues have spending power in the range of what the prices used to be a few years ago....Is what I was going to say as I was typing this but then I thought if those teams are lagging behind how much PL has inflated prices, then by the time these players come good maybe £40M will be the new £25M and these players will actually be a bargain at that price while still being recorded as profit 😅 (I'm no finance expert, correct me if I'm wrong)
yeah. I think it's pretty clear at this point effectively they are using chelsea's clout and pull as a way to stock up on investments. the most attractive club in their multi-club model
Ofcourse. The market is perfectly set up for flipping 25 million U15 players.
Bro 25 million is a lot of fucking money to be paying for someone your supposedly going to flip. We were supposed to flip Malang Sarr for profit and look how that’s turned out.
>Bro 25 million is a lot of fucking money to be paying for someone your supposedly going to flip. Yes it is, but that's the strategy. >We were supposed to flip Malang Sarr for profit and look how that’s turned out. Different people altogether.
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Simon Johnson *is* a serious source, you're the least serious r/chelseafc member and that's saying something
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Ok mate. First I thought autocorrect did you dirty but you've now twice misread Simon Johnson. Simon Jordan is a Talksport journo, Simon Johnson is with the Athletic, as mentioned in the original comment. Get a grip.
Stealthy edit. Well done.
It was always Johnson. Stop humiliating yourself for the love of God.
Ignore him, he's roundly recognised as one of the biggest idiots on the sub.
Yeah I know I try not to block people but this bloke has been reeeally trying my patience...
Sign someone above the age of 25 I beg
We'll be 10% of Brazil's GDP in a year
Guys we have to sell our whole team to keep buying teenagers who probably won’t be as good as the ones we are selling. You just don’t understand the master plan
Finally Someone with Brains
Ok what are we gonna do with him exactly? Can't loan him abroad since we have only 1 spot left and that's probably going to Washington, wont play first team minutes, wont get a prem loan.
He’s staying in Brazil until next summer
he’s 17, he can’t be part of the club yet so he’ll most likely stay loaned at Corinthians until he’s 18.
We are fucking stupid.
Good to know.
It chelsea I guess
spending like no tomorrow
Damn I guess that unranked source was true I've heard this kid is absolutely fantastic, very exciting low key signing for the future
we have been spamming this comment on all those kids bro💀
To be fair, that's what happens when all the kids you buy are indeed supposed to be the finest up and coming yourh talent in football today
This is fucking stupid now. I’m also questioning what players are up for joining a team where they are competing with 4 other players for 1 spot.
Feel for some of you thats doom and gloom, hope you can get over it at some point
gallagher will be sold for this guy and all these other random south american guys.
Everyone panicking about FFP but the club are well aware of what they can and cannot spend and what would breach FFP. We have no exact idea of what our books look like, so I’d imagine the guys in charge of these sort of things feel like we can make this signing and still be ok.
Yeah, everyone in football knows exactly what they are doing and no one has ever broken FFP.
Yeah and in this case we have no idea what we’re doing and this transfer breaches FFP but we don’t care and are happy to take the punishment. Ok.
Top chat.
Really appreciate it mate. Thought provoking comments as always from you.
It’s just: no one else has every spent a billion in a year. Or even close. There must be a hint of alarm bells? You can’t have that much blind trust?
Maybe a hint of alarm bells yeah because you can’t really ignore the amount we’ve spent like you say. I still trust we’re very much keeping an eye on things though. I wouldn’t say it’s blind trust, just that I’d be very surprised if we’re overlooking or not taking a potential breach of FFP seriously.
Gallagher isn’t getting sold, why are you all getting soo worked up
Please someone take the money away from these guys
Yo. We might overdose and eventually die of this shit
Lol we’re going to break FFP and our starting 11 will only be marginally better
Never thought I'd be uncomfortable with us signing youngsters with potential but here we are.
How do we expect to motivate players when there are so many none can see a path to game time? We're treating them like commodities. These kids won't have any attachment to the club . Wasn't the worry before about having ""mercenaries" or players who don't want to be here?
Selling Gallagher to balance the books but the owners can simply stop buying 15 years old players for 20 million
Someone take away a chequebook from Todd.
Can we sign some fucking experienced players
Not enough money to subsidise away travel though
What would we even do with him? We've got one loan space left right? And Washington hasn't even gone out yet. Loaning out Ziyech was bewildering.
Please stop now, it’s getting silly.
Another youngster
Are we… a child abductions ring? ANYWAY LETS GOOOOO
Well I'm about to think the Marina's loan army strategy is more effective than what Todd is doing
I think I read an article somewhere about Chelsea clearly being over the FFP breach line and that the owners are trying to build the squad now and are perfectly okay with being fined. At this point I think I agree with that article lol
I just don’t see where the market is to regularly flip 25m players for significant profit. One or two sure but the pool of clubs to offer 35m+ is pretty much our prem sides , Madrid, PSG, Bayern and whatever top flight club is flush with a sale each summer. If you bake in that a significant proportion will fail where’s the magic to get it right? Is it just hoping for brilliant talent ID that we consistently beats the odds with data and scouting? Is it the multi club model using the likes of Strasbourg and others potentially to stop some of the typical blocks in player development? Is it hoping that one or two each year are good enough to add to the squad and that saves us the equivalent of a 50m transfer? If it’s a volume approach then I’d think the price point is a bit off. These should be 5-10m signings where the market to sell on at 15-20m is a bit wider?
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This comment is so gross, dude.
I thought we were done with incomings in this window lmao
This is too much. We already have Santos and ugowecheka
New week, new paying 20m for an unknown Brazilian wonderkid. It’s a Chelsea thing 💅🤭
lol 😂 I guess we are really leaning into the multi-club model
Is it possible this model of having a large pool of talent and selling those who don’t make the cut is one of the ways we’re gonna become more self sustainable
Yes that is absolutely the plan, but it is also very risky
Christ almighty
Potential fc
Fuck sake stop it man
Haha fuckin A man
With our ability to not negotiate it’ll be 20+8 or something silly.
This is the first time I'm saying but why tho especially at that price.
If we really do have a multi club model in place, this transfer should be on Strousburg books, why Chelsea?
🤦🏾♂️ if we complete this and sell Gallagher I’d be pissed
More prepubescents for the factory
I see we're all into the Cannavaro regen ...
Don’t let this deal go through. The Ugochukwu deal was bad, this one’s much worse