Chelsea had a big clear-out this season in attempt to stay within FFP laws but they’ve now learnt they must sell £100m worth of homegrown players.
Chelsea’s FFP struggles
Since Todd Boehly bought the club in 2022, he has spent £1bn on players. They’ve broken the British transfer record fee twice in that time with Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo.
Their hefty transfer activity could see them punished if they have broken Profit and Sustainability rules, with the club not allowed to make a loss of more than £105m over a three-year period.
Everton and Nottingham Forest are two clubs that have already been convicted of this earlier on in the season. Manchester City are also up against it as they’re being investigated for 115 charges.
Chelsea did sell £150m worth of players in the summer but it’s not enough.
The Blues are already being investigated for illegal payments that were made by previous owner Roman Abramovich.
What else do Chelsea need to do?
Chelsea will have to sell £100m worth of homegrown players. This would include the likes of Reece James and Connor Gallagher. Chelsea did sell Cobham Mason Mount to Manchester United for £50m in the summer.
FFP expert and financial adviser Stefan Borson gave an update on Chelsea’s financial situation.
He said: “We all know that the pure profits that you get from selling your youngsters off have no book value.
“So fine, but clearly to sell off your captain [James] and near ever-present player [Gallagher] to your local rivals [Tottenham] was an unusual situation.
“When we looked at that at the start of the window, we were thinking, ‘What’s going on there?’
“It’s not a big surprise that of all the people that didn’t bite at £50m-£80m, that [Spurs chairman] Daniel Levy sort of paused and said, ‘I’ll wait and see what happens thank you.’
“Because he knows that within the Premier League – particularly teams like Spurs – they understand Chelsea’s predicament when it comes to PSR Financial Fair Play for this season.
“And they will take advantage of that, and that’s what you’ve seen with [Armando] Broja, they talked about £50m-£60m at the start of the window.
“And he ends up going [to Fulham] for potentially zero – the loan fee might be zero if he plays every game.”
He continued: “In my mind, there’s certainly trouble on the horizon, and they will certainly fail FFP for the current season.
“Unless – and it seems to be very unlikely – that by June 30 this year they sell well over £100m of players. But the window they can now do that is going to be very small, because the season is going to finish and we’ve got the Euros.
“So if you look at someone like Gallagher, he’s going to be in the Euros from June 14, so if they want to ship him before June 30, they’ve got to move very quickly. And again, the likely buyers are going to know that Chelsea need to sell players.”
He continued: “I have lots of people telling me, ‘You sell Gallagher for £60m, Broja for £40m, James for £30m,’ but there’s no buyers.
“There’s no money in the game at the moment, and the Premier League [clubs] are not stupid, they’re not going to bite on these crazy prices for players they don’t rate that highly, and where they know that Chelsea are over a barrel.”
Armando Broja
Broja completed a loan move to Fulham on deadline day. He will return back to Stamford Bridge at the end of the season.
Hopefully for Chelsea, Broja manages to get some goals. They could then sell him off for their desired fee.
Add Sportslens to your Google News Feed!
