Observe | With $1 billion in signings, how can Chelsea get past FFP?
With Chelsea already pouring over £800 million into signings during the Burleigh era, is it true that the Blues won't break the rules of fair play on finance?
Caicedo joined Chelsea.
This sentence alone is not surprising, after all, the Blues' interest in Ecuador's backs has a long history, and this summer alone has been talked about for more than a month, during which even if there was an episode in which Liverpool planned to cut halfway, and finally came together in a two-way way. But the reality is that we can't be undoubted, one is because Caicedo's value, £115 million is too high, and the other is a more confusing extended thinking: under the premise that they have already burned a lot of banknotes, the Blues have smashed sky-high prices and have not stopped immediately, do they not violate the law of fiscal fair play, that is, FFP?
It is easy to explain briefly about Caicedo's all-time Premier League champions: strong players, high inflation, combined with Chelsea's thirst for talent and Liverpool's sudden price increase, have led to the current situation. Given the precedent of Rice's transfer price of 105 million in the Premier League this summer, the Blues, who "lack a strong defensive midfield", complete the reinforcement of the team's most critical position at an approximate price, which is not too exaggerated, but the "unreasonable" thing is that Chelsea have brought in far more than that. Just talking about this summer, from the first confirmed Nkunku, excluding pure reserve team signings, to Caicedo is already the eighth newcomer, of which 19-year-old Portuguese winger Diego Moreira is exempt, the other seven have spent transfer fees.
As we all know, in the two transfer windows last summer and January, Chelsea under US boss Burley have already made two rounds of buying frenzy, bringing in about £600 million, including former Premier League champion Enzo Fernandez. Originally, the outside world thought that the new owner of Stamford Bridge would converge slightly in the third window, and the transfer focused on slimming rather than continuing to hoard new people. However, on the contrary, the Blues did not sell people thoroughly enough, and the buyers spent another 286 million. In other words, Chelsea have invested more than £800 million in signings during the Burleigh era, and it is entirely possible to break through the 900 million mark or even exceed 1 billion - after all, Southampton midfielder Lavia is on the way with a transfer fee of more than half a billion, and winger Olisse may come in front of the field.
Spend 1 billion in less than two years?! It's incredible to think about, but Chelsea are really going in that direction. Let's not discuss where this money comes from for now, but how the law of fair play alone is going to be curious enough. The general perception is that Americans have exploited the rules. In the first two transfer windows, Chelsea's routine is the "amortization method", using ultra-long contracts to reduce annual losses, for example, Enzo although the transfer fee is hundreds of millions, but because the contract is 8 and a half years, the average annual amortization is less than 12 million.
The Blues have invested £887 million in acquisitions during the Burleigh era.
Because the Americans brazenly walked the gray area, they signed "unconventional" long contracts for all new signings, which triggered UEFA's vigilance. The latter changed the rules in June this year, confirming that from July onwards, the amortization calculation of all newly signed players was changed to "up to 5 years", that is, the contract can still be signed for 7 or 8 years, but the transfer fee expenditure can only be divided by a maximum of 5 in the annual accounts. However, this article has clearly not stopped the Blues from continuing to play tricks - Caicedo's contract is not only eight years long, but also has a clause that can be extended by one year.
An important reason for this is that UEFA's rules are only relevant to UEFA competitions, and Chelsea happen to have no European competition this season, so they can temporarily ignore UEFA's review. At the same time, the Premier League's own review standards are old, so Chelsea can still calculate Caicedo, who has a fixed transfer fee of £100 million, as "£12.5 million amortized for the 2023-24 season". Regarding this trick, the Daily Mail broke the news on the eve of Caicedo's official announcement, claiming that the Premier League is ready to follow UEFA and change the amortization period to a maximum of 5 years, but the "temporary holding of Buddha's feet" obviously cannot limit the current Blues, and the "Post" said that the new rules may not be officially implemented until next summer window.
The Americans are cunning, and the historic European football has been laid out again. But then again, Chelsea didn't play in Europe this year, so aren't they ready to play next year? Whether the rules of the Premier League are changed or not, the Blues will still have to prepare for UEFA's financial review after all, and FFP cannot be completely bypassed. Under the new Fair Play Rules, also known as the Fiscal Sustainability Rule, clubs are not allowed to spend more than 70% of revenue on salaries, transfers and agent commissions. After deducting some projects such as youth training, the club's loss in three years cannot exceed 60 million euros (about 51.64 million pounds). Of course, next season is still a buffer period for the new rules, and the "spending cap" is actually 80%. According to UEFA regulations, clubs with "good financial status" can get a certain degree of forbearance, and the maximum loss in a three-year period can actually reach 90 million euros.
It should be pointed out that before Burleigh bought Chelsea, if the factor of constant blood transfusions of the old owner Abramovich was removed, Chelsea's accounts did not look healthy. In March, the Blues reported their 2021-22 season results, and the loss was still £121 million excluding last year's summer window purchases. This is also the second consecutive year that the team has lost money, and the 2020-21 season affected by the epidemic has a deficit of 153 million. After the Americans took over, the Blues did some "burden reduction" work, mainly releasing a large number of high-paid veterans, while the new signing of young players was mostly a relatively low-salary plus bonus model. This can be said to be throttling, and before that, excessive salary spending was one of the reasons why Chelsea lost money.
In addition, there is "open source", which in the eyes of some experts and the industry is the key to the blue army's crazy burning of money but will not immediately "explode". Kieran Maguire, a finance lecturer at the University of Liverpool, once said: "Because people are watching Chelsea's big signings, they are ignoring their external flows. The fact is that Chelsea's player sales have also been £1.2 billion since the 2013-14 season. Athletic.com simply calculated that the Blues' amortisation expenditure over the past three transfer windows was around £157 million, while the accounting profit from the sale of players was $149 million, which can be said to have largely eliminated the former.
However, even "optimistic" economists believe that the Blues will have a lot to do to meet the requirements of the FFP in the future. They most likely need to sell more players, especially their own youth players, because youth players can calculate "zero cost" when bookkeeping, sell as much as they earn, and buy players and then sell, calculate the profit to deduct the part that he has not yet amortized. So will the Blues still have a "homegrown boutique" like Mount that can sell at a high price? Gallagher and Charobah's names are already mentioned frequently, and Burleigh's team may look for another look in Abu's legacy.
Predictably, Chelsea's young recruits are unlikely to accept "relatively low" salaries forever, even if they are now on long contracts, and it is unrealistic to expect to sell players for more than 200 million a year as they did this summer. So the Blues must have another "breakthrough" to add value to their players with better results and bring in more game and commercial revenue, otherwise their current gamble is bound to collapse someday in the future. As of the start of the season, the situation did not seem to be ideal, there is nothing to say without Champions League qualification, and the Blues also had a "skylight" on their chest in their first-round shirts due to lack of sponsorship.
Of course, judging by the latest news, the situation has improved. The Blues are said to have signed a contract with a new sports statistics company called Infinite Athlete, which will receive more than £40 million per season only to be reviewed by the Premier League. Under the leadership of new manager Pochettino, Chelsea also showed a new style in the focus of the first round of the league against Liverpool, conceding a goal first but attacking fiercely, and finally reaping an exciting 1-1 draw, showing the momentum to end the chaos and quickly get back on track.
Coupled with the arrival of Caicedo to make up for the No. 6 shortcoming, Chelsea seem to have laid the foundation for rebuilding at the sporting level? Don't jump to conclusions. Looking closely at the Blues' first-team squad, it is not difficult to find that there are still 30+ numbers here, even if Lukaku and Ziyech are removed from a few redundant players who should have gone but have not yet been completed, it is still a long way from the "maximum 25-man boutique squad" that Pochettino is looking forward to. The strange thing about this is that the clean-up seems to have stalled, but the people who are stuffing the team are happy to do it. A back-and-back Kesedo is not enough to snatch Lavia from Liverpool's mouth; Then Manchester City's considered winger Olise, who has not let go, although the Blues already have Modric, Maduekai and other similar types of youngsters waiting to be adjusted.
When these two are also here, will the new "Blue Youth Army" be perfect and can blow a storm? Not to talk about running-in and growth, there will definitely be people who want to say more: "Is it, there is still a lack of a center?" "Nkunku is injured and needs to rest for a long time, isn't Jackson alone enough? For other clubs without European competition, this difficulty may be over, but who knows what happened to Chelsea? As soon as he lost weight, he immediately gained weight, and the Blues senior management probably did not feel that the lack of time on the field was a big deal.
Wen | Yan Yu
Editor|Spicy soup
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