Chelsea’s Incredible Spending Creates Non-FFP Problems Moving Forward

When Todd Boehly and the Clearlake group bought out former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich given the UK Government sanctions they faced owing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fans understandably wondered what might come next for the club.

Boehly came in with big speeches about spending to make Chelsea a proper force once again in the Premier League and there is absolutely no doubting that he has more than put his money where his mouth was when you look at the business they have conducted in both the summer and then the January transfer window during the 2022/23 campaign.

The summer saw an incredible spend from the club with the big money arrivals of names like Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Mark Cucurella and Wesley Fofana. They proved to be just as free with the money in January as they spent over a reported extra £250 million on players like David Datro Fofano, Mykhailo Mudryk, Maio Gusto and Enzo Fernandez and that would definitely have www.wetten.com the appetites of fans.

22 year old Fernandez comes into the club from Benfica for a British record transfer fee of £107 million and, as fans will know, the highly rated and talented midfielder is fresh from success with Argentina at the first ever winter World Cup out in Qatar, so there is plenty of interest in seeing exactly how he adjusts to the pace and more physical nature of the Premier League.

Although plenty in the wider world of football are pondering exactly how Chelsea can get away with this kind of level of spending given the restrictions that are supposed to be enforced by the PL’s Financial Fair Play regulations, BBC Radio London’s Phil Parry believes that there will be swift action over the summer by their board, to ensure that they again come back into financial line.

Speaking recently following the end of deadline day to the BBC’s The Far Post podcast, he explained that Chelsea’s strategy this season had been ‘brave and bold’ but without question, it would need ‘to be evened out’ pretty quickly.

“It’s a bold gamble because of the length of deals and the exorbitant amount of money. They have bought exciting players with real quality and it indicates a long-term strategy. From a fan’s point of view, why would you not be excited? The future of the club is already being built – with the gamble these young players will deliver sustained success. At some point there will have to be wholesale exits as the squad will be so unwieldy.”

With 18 new players now having arrived since the end of last season, Chelsea have recouped some money with nine departures over the summer, and the late sale of Jorginho to Arsenal on deadline day, but there remains effectively a £400 million plus gap in transfers this season and that is not including the costs or savings associated with loan moves. With Chelsea seeing the late breakdown of Moroccan forward, Hakim Ziyech’s, loan move out to Paris Saint-Germain following paperwork issues, that will be an additional piece of financial wriggle room that they now have to deal with down the line.

Given the quality of some members of the squad that will now wonder if they will get a look in, plenty of other Premier League clubs will be looking to secure bargains and drive hard deal in the summer knowing that Chelsea have to sell, for both financial FFP reasons and purely from a squad bloat perspective.

Chelsea however, have to manage that imbalance of power in future negotiations.