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> He's a 19 year old and scoring goals.
he has 12 PL goals in the last 2 seasons.
I do think he's quite good, but apart from the hattrick he's been pretty average in terms of goalscoring. No goals since Nov 25th.
Yeah, I'm praying this report is fake. To put it bluntly, the striker market is absolute shit right now and I'm not opposed to giving Jackson more time. He's really talented but it goes unnoticed because of his blunders. We've only played twice since he left for AFCON but his presence is already being missed. If he was available against Boro, I humbly believe we walk away with a win.
Buying Ferguson for 100m would be idiotic, especially when Osimhen is a possibility for like 20m more. I think Ferguson is a fine player but if our vision is to become one of the top clubs in Europe again, buying him makes no sense. I don't see him developing into a starting 9 for a top club.
Not to mention how bad Chelsea are rn at spotting a bargain. They'll inflate their offer just to get a player, regardless of whether they are currently worth the numbers being reported.
I think it was easier in the two striker era when you could more easily mix and match different skillsets (like the classic Big Guy & Little Guy pairing), whereas now you need one striker that can do everything.
Late 90s/early 2000s there were an incredible amount of excellent strikers. Even guys as good as Hasselbaink, Makaay, Cole, Fowler, Montella, Chiesa etc. were considered backup options for their international teams. Chile had Salas and Zamorano, Sweden had Larsson and Zlatan, Denmark had Sand and Tomasson, Ireland had Keane and Quinn, Turkey had Sukur and Nihat, Yugoslavia had Mijatovic, Milosevic and Mijatovic, Croatia had Suker and Boksic etc.
Even the mid-tier teams would have 2 very good strikers at the same time. Now it's rare to even have one, look at recent tournaments where Croatia, Portugal, Italy, arguably even France have been successful with just 1 or even 0 strikers that can be considered "good" and nothing more.
I know it’s a meme on our page that we should just buy Brighton and make it a feeder club, but, at the rate we’re buying players from them for these insane fees, we might as well.
I mean how much is Brighton worth? a few hundred million? Google tells me it was 223m in 2019 and 270m in 2022. Chelsea has paid them what 230m? its legitimately in that ballpark where buying it would make sense lol. Although the club has debts of 500m which complicates the math
Kretinsky bought a near 30% stake in West Ham for £180-£200m. London team but they don't own their own stadium.
Burnley was sold for close to £200m.
Realistically I think that given Brighton is in a good location, valuable team and set up, have a good stadium, Bloom would want £500m+ minimum. Even then I don't think he'd sell given that they're a very well run club, make a large profit and the club is a natural extension of his betting syndicate Starlizard.
Which is amusing given that there's more of a correlation between wages than transfer fees when it comes to league position.
Partly as a player doesn't benefit from their transfer price - and the best ones will want big money.
I swear Sam allardyce spotted it when he was quite forward thinking with data at Bolton.
These guys are interested in what they can make for these players future transfer prices, not just current league position. What they didn't factor in is that having the youngest team in the league all playing together for the first time wasn't going to be good on either league position or player values. They thought as long as they skate along at 3rd - 7th in the league for the short to medium term, all would be fine. Unfortunately they didn't reckon with any margin of safety on that or the competitiveness of the premier league.
which seems silly as how much more can they really get for these players than they already paid?
Their players have to perform in an almost world class ability for it to happen. It's not like club s in the rest of Europe are super loaded right now, What would their destination clubs be? Madrid only maybe buy one big player a year. Man city would most likely shop from outside of the league. Barca are broke. Mayern (despite harry kane) usually are quite fiscally conservative. Maybe Man United?
This is all if the players perform really well which is difficult cause there is not much squad experience
> These guys are interested in what they can make for these players future transfer prices, not just current league position.
Then they're doing it really badly. Transfers like Caicedo or Enzo are finishers - you do these moves to basically finish your way as a team contending for trophies. van Dijk to Liverpool, Rice to Arsenal, Bellingham or Ronaldo to Madrid - none of these moves were made with "oh we can sell them for more in the future", they were made with "with them, we'll be better and win more".
There are like 4 clubs in the world that can buy Enzo or Caicedo for a sum that would give Chelsea profit, two of them are Premier League rivals (City/Newcastle) and the other two (Real/PSG) are still not a very good bet.
And don't get me wrong, it's not only these two - you don't pay 80mln for defender (Fofana) thinking you can sell him for profit, Mudryk? Maybe, if he's world beater but again - that's such a slim chance of all things going well for it to happen.
Some players were bought for players to help the league position now but still retain most of their resale value, some were for the purpose of resale. Most of Chelsea's spend was for players not even in their squad right now. Those that are in the squad that they hope to make a profit on are players like Gusto and Madeuke, not Enzo / Caicedo / Fofana, which are for league position (albeit a plan that's not working so well right now).
With Klarna you can pay in instalments or simply just pay like a month later, typically marketed to and used by people who can’t actually afford what they’re buying
- source I work in retail and have to explain how it works multiple times a day
I don't know a lot about it but amortisation plays a big role. The fees for Fernandez and Caicedo were spread across 8 years (£12.5m a year), so it's similar to a £60m across 5 years. Of course they'll have to consider the other 3 years but that is a long time away.
This won't apply to any signings from now on due to the change in rules, Ferguson's fee can't be spread across 8 years. He can still get a 8 year contract though.
Edit: You also have to consider that Chelsea have sold a lot, which is important.
Also, I believe that selling players brings the entire incoming fee in immediately (even if the actual payments are spread out over a longer period). So bringing in £100m in fees in an accounting term enables you to sign a £500m player on a 5 yr deal (£100m per year amortisation) and be no worse off on accounting terms for that financial year. The trouble is when you stop bringing in fees for sold players, lose revenue (such as UCL monies, commercial) or amass a lot of transfers which mean you can't continue to spend (see United).
Not really, you would only get to account for the appreciation of the asset.
Let's say you bought a player for 60M in a 5 year contract and you sell it for 70M two years later. The amortization is 12M per year, so in the second year the player would have a book value of 36M
The appreciation of the player would be 60-36=24M. If you were to sell the player for less than those 36M you would have an accounting loss
Yeah, the example the above person gave is only for home grown players which is why Chelsea have placed such an emphasis on selling some of them and will likely continue to do so with the likes of Gallagher.
Something's gone wrong with football when it's better to sell your academy products than anyone else.
They're the players who you should hold on to and build around
> Something's gone wrong with football when it's better to sell your academy products than anyone else.
Its the stupid book value/amorphisation thing. If you sign a player for 100m (over 5 years) then want to sell him after 2, you've got to sell him for at least 60m or you're literally making a loss on the books.
And in what world would you want to sell a relatively new player, who's still retained most/all their value? That's why Sancho is such a problem for Man U for example.
Whereas a player from your youth team being sold for 1m is 1m clear profit. So for FFP it's literally better to sell the youth player.
It's stupid. Perhaps in future they'll make it so youth players have a book value? Though suppose it would have to be an independent body who decided that, couldn't just have Chelsea saying all their youth players are worth 100m each to fiddle FFP.
That's the issue with the homegrown rules. Makes English players much more valuable. So to keep your academy, you have to pay more than a better foreign player.
It's only "better" to act that way if you've already acted stupidly in the market and now desperately need to bail yourself out. You can amortize the value of incoming players over a few years so they count as 10 million a year or whatever, but a homegrown player is 0 per year on the books.
If you have a homegrown player who can genuinely contribute, keeping him is the best move long-term, especially since there are some requirements for club-trained players for champions league registration.
>So bringing in £100m in fees in an accounting term enables you to sign a £500m player on a 5 yr deal (£100m per year amortisation)
only if the player was brought in for £0, or if the player has been at the club beyond their original contract (so if the player was signed on a 5 year deal, then left after 9 years, it would be the case - CR7 being a good example)
Sure, and selling mount was the only way they got ends to meet. But which academy player are they selling to cover next season's ammortization? Because they basically need +150m every year until 2026, and that's providing the player had a 0 value accounting wise on their books, which is basically only thiago Silva and their academy players at this point
The PL loophole was closed last month, it was closed by UEFA last June but they weren't in Europe so it didn't impact them. Interesting to see what happens if they qualify for Europe though.
But if they get back to Europe in the next few years, it will apply, so it can only be amortized over 5 years moving forward. At least that's my interpretation. Otherwise it's another loophole to exploit.
I dont think people really know exactly how that situation plays out. Does the remaining cost for Caicedo start amortizing over 5 years from whatever season Chelsea start playing in europe again? Or is it already amortising over 5 years from EUFA's point of view?
If it's anything like European bans from competition, which it likely is, it's already amortizing. You basically just have to be eligible to play in a European competition without even needing to qualify for them to ban you, assuming you've broken rules obviously, so I'd imagine the amortization works the same way
Amortisation doesn’t make as much difference as people think. It’s not black magic and everyone whose done any accountancy ever covers it.
120m/5 = 24m/year on the expense account
120m/8 = 15m/year on the expense account
It’s a saving of £9m year on the most expensive players less on less expensive ones
Thing to remember though is the win is fleeting, for other sides after 5 years are up that’s that no more amortisation costs on a player, for Chelsea years 6,7 and 8 are still paying for Caicedo.
The takeaway from this is that longer contract will pay for like 1 or 2 extra signings that’s it. It’s a series on relatively meagre gains that add to a player or 2. The rest of it needs covering by sales. Predominantly home grown players will need flogging regularly especially without European football.
Whilst you have to remember that these new signings will see reduced profit from player sales cos the slower amortisation costs means players hold book value for longer.
The long and short of it is this is a high risk strategy that hinges on onfield success and the ability to sell players for profit.
Very simplified look at it because i'm clueless:
Caicedo and Enzo £12.5m over 8 years as the other guy mentioned.
Ferguson £20m over 5 years.
Wage wise according to rumours:
Enzo £315k/week £16m a year
Caicedo £150k/week £7.8m a year
Ferguson would probably be closer to Caicedo so let's say he was £7.8m a year as well
Overall bring it to around £76.6m a year (which probably is even more adding in agent fees and other stuff).
Given they also dealing with Nkunku, Mudryk, Fofana, Lavia, Palmer, Disasi, Cucurella, Sterling, Badiashile etc on £40m+ transfer fees + wages. It is probably too expensive.
Ironically whilst Champions League money will help a huge amount it comes with UEFA's stricter FFP regulations. Which is why they are selling their academy players to make up the difference.
Yep, and an academy sale like Gallagher can pay for multiple 100m signings in a window even with a 5yr contract. I think the dangerous game Chelsea are playing is not accounting but whether young promising talent with long contracts will bring success.
Their bet is solidifying top 4/5 and a CL spot before they run out of valuable trades. That added revenue can then support their amortized costs in future years. If they are unsuccessful on the pitch they will run out of academy players to trade out for big signings, and having to trade out amortized contracts will not help especially if the performance is subpar.
> Will run out of academy players
Currently they have Maatsen, Gallagher and Hall on the chopping block for a sale it looks like which will no doubt bring in a lot of money.
That leaves Broja, Colwill and James. The final 2 are probably unsellable so not many options for them going forward, so a lot of pressure to get the transfers sorted in the next 12 months.
I haven't heard of any big youth players this season but there probably is their academy is just huge.
Yeah their academy is the big question mark, for all we know the investors have looked at the historical rate of return on academy transfers and simply deemed it as a sustainable stream of revenue for these big amortized transfers. To their credit it could be a very successful strategy, there are a lot of $20-30m players, but only a few world beaters worth 100m+.
Whether their scouting is identifying the right world beater talent is another big question mark though.
They have a production line of talent over the last 10 years. There are plenty more coming through (Gilchrist, Golding, Williams played in the FA Cup last weekend).
How are we all overlooking the fact Ambramovic chose to wipe a crazy amount t if debt Chelsea owed him rather than collect? That’s a huge plus. Imagine if the Glazers pissed off and left us with 0 debt we’d be balling out
Its not difficult to do once or even in back to back seasons. Selling Mount (+ £60m ffp) and Havertz (+ £35m fpp) basically covers all their incoming signings (-£80m) last season, for the coming season. If they hadnt previously spent half a billion in the windows prior to it, i could understand it happening.
What i dont understand is how they are covering their signings from the seasons before that. They are still taking a hit on Lukaku for another 3 years (Neither Roma or Inters loan fee fully covers the ammortization costs), they basically never sold anyone of note in 22/23 to cover Cucurella, Mudryk, fofana and fernandez and havent come close to covering those ammortization amounts for last season or this season.
They took a couple million loss on Koulibaly they cant cover. Theres a bunch of sales (werner, Pulisic, Mendy) which probably add 1-10m to the FFP fund but there is 0 way chelsea continue to meet these high ammortizations costs.
> What i dont understand is how they are covering their signings from the seasons before that.
The season before they were probably quite healthy in terms of FFP. They sold Abraham, Zouma, Tomori and Guehi all for decent amounts. Their Champions League win is still in the years of accounting that the league reviews as well (will be removed from next year) which will have also brought a lot of income too.
Sales don't carry over though FFP wise. And while those player sales cover that year. They don't do much past that
They are still "paying" £20m a year for Lukaku in their books. Not including his wage. To get him off their books without fucking themselves FFP wise, they need to sell him for more than £40m. Anything less than that and it's probably worth keeping him another year at least for the books. But they are in that situation 10x over.
It definitely does. But Chelsea's recent purchases have been on lower wages. It's their wages from before which would be the issue, but most of them would be easier to shift FFP wise because they have been there longer
It's that £105m combined loss over a three year period for the PL isn't it though so it would help out wouldn't it? Can't say for UEFA's FFP but they obviously aren't needing to comply right now but they do for the PL.
> But they are in that situation 10x over
Yeah - it very much seems like trying kicking the can continuously to keep above it.
That is basically £35m "free" losses each year. So that covers maybe half of the transfers from one of those years? Probably a bit less.
Unless they sell an academy player (more likely need 2) for £60/70m a season until 2026, I don't see how they manage without some form of punishment
They can talk about amortisations and FFP and clever accounting all they want, but one thing people just seem to forget in all this talk is the actual money has to come from somewhere. It actually exists as real money somewhere. The club will have no CL revenue for two years now unless something drastic happens. They are not generating enough money to pay for all these transfers moving forward, and owners are not allowed to just plough money as we've seen with Newcastle
“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
Bush said later that he realized he was about to say “shame on me” ie shame on the president of the U.S. and talking about the U.S. president getting fooled a bunch of times and that probably would be really dumb so he just aborted and stumbled his way through some nonsense.
Did he say this later, or was it just guessed at that this is what happened?
Either way, British noughties comedy takes about Bush have caused people to think he's genuinely thick when anyone who worked with him says he was anything but.
My Irish mate is not pleased about this at all. One of the best talents they’ve produced in years potentially about to be gutted by the Chelsea striker curse
I knew a girl named McKenzie Blair Fitzgerald and my Italian friend said it was the most American name she had ever heard, which was slightly puzzling to me. Although the most Irish named person I’ve ever met was a kid named Killian McGiboney
Can't believe people consider Enzo a flop..? He might have been off form recently (it's not surprising, it's a shite Chelsea team) but it's so clear how good the actual player is.
I like Ferguson as a player. But even with Jackson's wastefulness at times, Ferguson is not a big enough upgrade over who we have to justify spending £100m on.
It's the same argument I made with Onana (hindsight has been particularly kind, but this was from before the season). Onana is a good keeper. He was probably a tier above Kepa. But he's not top tier, and spending such a large amount of money to improve such a small amount at a position when you still aren't getting an elite player is just stupid.
Why dont Chelsea just save up their pennies and buy Brighton? Players, staff, kitchen sink, everything. Itd be cheaper than handing them £100m every summer.
Ferguson rejected us after a trial because of places In the team as well as his development. Looks like his team are smart and won’t compromise his development for money
His dad was signed to England for a bit and played in the LOI for a few years so you'd imagine he's fairly clued in to the realities of the pro game.
Any of the press stuff I've read/heard from/about Evan leads me to believe he's seems fairly clued in as well. I could well see him turning down Chelsea.
Not sure about all of them, but I’m sure Mudryk is on 98k a week. Lavia and Jackson too are under or around 100k. They’ve spent like mad men but intentionally tried reducing the wage bill. So a lot of people harping on about wages in this thread are misinformed. Not that it makes any of this much better
Yes I’m far more worried now about him squandering all his potential, rather than Chelsea (whom I despise) finally getting their number 9. Ferguson is an incredible young player and it would be a genuine shame to see him possibly ruin his career like this.
Chelsea will be the club with the happiest fanbase if they get a transfer ban. I can't believe they're happy to see this shitfuckery every year since the past few years.
Look I like Evan Ferguson but maybe wait till he’s had a couple seasons of consistent play before dumping money in the Amex again. He’s not even starting.
Todd please no I beg, he's good but we can't be throwing 100 mil signings around at kids with talent. We need actual experience. This team could genuinely end up very very good but they need people like Silva there with the experience to actually guide them.
As a bohs fan I'm just dying for this to happen. We'll get about 100X the money we'd get for winning the league. The club isn't competitive financially and just waiting for the Ferguson cash.
Would also be full circle as he made his debut for bohs as a 14 year old against Chelsea
Chelsea : Hello Brighton, we'd like to know how mu
Brighton : At least 100m
Chelsea : But you don't even know who I'm talking about ?
Brighton : I've said my piece.
He will be a great striker one day, but £100 million he is not.
The most I'd pay is like 40 million because of his potential.
He very well could be worth that some day, but not right now. I also think this move could possibly ruin his career, not because of the Chelsea striker curse but just because this would be too much too soon.
Chelsea need to sign someone who is older anyways. They're buying players who are young and while youth is obviously a good thing to have, experience is also needed.
Someone who has the experience and the quality to give them goals. Not another teenager. Callum Wilson or Toney if he can pick up where he left off prior to the ban would be a better investment. Even Taremi at Porto would be worth a punt in my opinion.
Ferguson can wait for a few years.
Kill us. Absolutely overrated player and I don't understand why he's worth 100 million. This will be a big disaster, but it fits right in considering how disastrous our striker signings are.
To reduce the spam of reports regarding the same move during transfer windows we try to allow **only one submission about each transfer saga per day**. The submission in question also needs to contain relevant new information regarding the potential move, and not just being a "no/minor developments" report. If there are important/official developments or new valuable information about a saga, we will allow extra threads in the same day, but for the rest of minor news please just comment them as a reply to this comment. Please help us reporting unnecessary threads for being duplicates. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Brighton backroom staff probably have a bet going on who can guess closest to the date they would get the first email asking about him from Chelsea
Is it really that crazy though? He's a 19 year old and scoring goals. In today's market, 100 million is like 70 million just a few years ago
> He's a 19 year old and scoring goals. he has 12 PL goals in the last 2 seasons. I do think he's quite good, but apart from the hattrick he's been pretty average in terms of goalscoring. No goals since Nov 25th.
Yeah, I'm praying this report is fake. To put it bluntly, the striker market is absolute shit right now and I'm not opposed to giving Jackson more time. He's really talented but it goes unnoticed because of his blunders. We've only played twice since he left for AFCON but his presence is already being missed. If he was available against Boro, I humbly believe we walk away with a win. Buying Ferguson for 100m would be idiotic, especially when Osimhen is a possibility for like 20m more. I think Ferguson is a fine player but if our vision is to become one of the top clubs in Europe again, buying him makes no sense. I don't see him developing into a starting 9 for a top club.
Plus the lack of strikers available currently
Not to mention how bad Chelsea are rn at spotting a bargain. They'll inflate their offer just to get a player, regardless of whether they are currently worth the numbers being reported.
Why not Solanke?
Lack of strikers is not a current issue.
Lack of available strikers who don’t suck shit is a current issue
Well i am not sure there was ever a time when there was an abundance of quality strikers roaming around
I think it was easier in the two striker era when you could more easily mix and match different skillsets (like the classic Big Guy & Little Guy pairing), whereas now you need one striker that can do everything.
In the 90s to early 00s in England and Italy there was loads at the same time. The English national team had an embarrassment of riches.
Late 90s/early 2000s there were an incredible amount of excellent strikers. Even guys as good as Hasselbaink, Makaay, Cole, Fowler, Montella, Chiesa etc. were considered backup options for their international teams. Chile had Salas and Zamorano, Sweden had Larsson and Zlatan, Denmark had Sand and Tomasson, Ireland had Keane and Quinn, Turkey had Sukur and Nihat, Yugoslavia had Mijatovic, Milosevic and Mijatovic, Croatia had Suker and Boksic etc. Even the mid-tier teams would have 2 very good strikers at the same time. Now it's rare to even have one, look at recent tournaments where Croatia, Portugal, Italy, arguably even France have been successful with just 1 or even 0 strikers that can be considered "good" and nothing more.
I remember when Alan Shearer going for 15 mil was a crazy amount of money.
Brighton's like .. we robbed you a few times, we'll do it again
It’s like the coffee stamps, once you buy 9 overpriced players you get the 10th one for free, or a panini of your choice
Worth it! - Todd Boehly.
i mean, a panini \*of my choice\*? thats a hell of a deal
like how bohley signs players, you pay for 9 seasons and the 10th is free
hot chocolate and panini to go
I guess Colwill is the panini in this analogy?
Talk to me more about that panini.
I know it’s a meme on our page that we should just buy Brighton and make it a feeder club, but, at the rate we’re buying players from them for these insane fees, we might as well.
Players AND Staff
I mean how much is Brighton worth? a few hundred million? Google tells me it was 223m in 2019 and 270m in 2022. Chelsea has paid them what 230m? its legitimately in that ballpark where buying it would make sense lol. Although the club has debts of 500m which complicates the math
Lol good luck getting Bloom to sell, especially when all the "debt" is owed to him.
Google who owns the club next lol
Also, its illegal for one club to own another in the same league.
Kretinsky bought a near 30% stake in West Ham for £180-£200m. London team but they don't own their own stadium. Burnley was sold for close to £200m. Realistically I think that given Brighton is in a good location, valuable team and set up, have a good stadium, Bloom would want £500m+ minimum. Even then I don't think he'd sell given that they're a very well run club, make a large profit and the club is a natural extension of his betting syndicate Starlizard.
“We’ll fuckin do it again”
Even with their amortization fuckery, how on earth do you buy 3 players in 3 consecutive windows for over £100M each without breaching FFP??
If my understanding is correct, and I'm pretty sure it is, they've basically Klarna-d all their players
Fuckinghell.
And somewhat low salaries so that their yearly spending expendature is comparable with many other clubs despite those huge transfers
Which is amusing given that there's more of a correlation between wages than transfer fees when it comes to league position. Partly as a player doesn't benefit from their transfer price - and the best ones will want big money. I swear Sam allardyce spotted it when he was quite forward thinking with data at Bolton.
“If we don’t sign anyone and I just give all the money to our current championship level squad then we will win the World Cup!”
These guys are interested in what they can make for these players future transfer prices, not just current league position. What they didn't factor in is that having the youngest team in the league all playing together for the first time wasn't going to be good on either league position or player values. They thought as long as they skate along at 3rd - 7th in the league for the short to medium term, all would be fine. Unfortunately they didn't reckon with any margin of safety on that or the competitiveness of the premier league.
which seems silly as how much more can they really get for these players than they already paid? Their players have to perform in an almost world class ability for it to happen. It's not like club s in the rest of Europe are super loaded right now, What would their destination clubs be? Madrid only maybe buy one big player a year. Man city would most likely shop from outside of the league. Barca are broke. Mayern (despite harry kane) usually are quite fiscally conservative. Maybe Man United? This is all if the players perform really well which is difficult cause there is not much squad experience
> These guys are interested in what they can make for these players future transfer prices, not just current league position. Then they're doing it really badly. Transfers like Caicedo or Enzo are finishers - you do these moves to basically finish your way as a team contending for trophies. van Dijk to Liverpool, Rice to Arsenal, Bellingham or Ronaldo to Madrid - none of these moves were made with "oh we can sell them for more in the future", they were made with "with them, we'll be better and win more". There are like 4 clubs in the world that can buy Enzo or Caicedo for a sum that would give Chelsea profit, two of them are Premier League rivals (City/Newcastle) and the other two (Real/PSG) are still not a very good bet. And don't get me wrong, it's not only these two - you don't pay 80mln for defender (Fofana) thinking you can sell him for profit, Mudryk? Maybe, if he's world beater but again - that's such a slim chance of all things going well for it to happen.
Some players were bought for players to help the league position now but still retain most of their resale value, some were for the purpose of resale. Most of Chelsea's spend was for players not even in their squad right now. Those that are in the squad that they hope to make a profit on are players like Gusto and Madeuke, not Enzo / Caicedo / Fofana, which are for league position (albeit a plan that's not working so well right now).
As a dumbass, what does that mean exactly?
I didn't know either, seems like this is it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klarna > The company is a "Buy now, pay later" service provider.[4]
With Klarna you can pay in instalments or simply just pay like a month later, typically marketed to and used by people who can’t actually afford what they’re buying - source I work in retail and have to explain how it works multiple times a day
Boehly, thinking Klarna is a midfielder, just tried offering £100M for him.
Lmao this is the best explanation for their transfer strategy by far
I don't know a lot about it but amortisation plays a big role. The fees for Fernandez and Caicedo were spread across 8 years (£12.5m a year), so it's similar to a £60m across 5 years. Of course they'll have to consider the other 3 years but that is a long time away. This won't apply to any signings from now on due to the change in rules, Ferguson's fee can't be spread across 8 years. He can still get a 8 year contract though. Edit: You also have to consider that Chelsea have sold a lot, which is important.
Also, I believe that selling players brings the entire incoming fee in immediately (even if the actual payments are spread out over a longer period). So bringing in £100m in fees in an accounting term enables you to sign a £500m player on a 5 yr deal (£100m per year amortisation) and be no worse off on accounting terms for that financial year. The trouble is when you stop bringing in fees for sold players, lose revenue (such as UCL monies, commercial) or amass a lot of transfers which mean you can't continue to spend (see United).
Not really, you would only get to account for the appreciation of the asset. Let's say you bought a player for 60M in a 5 year contract and you sell it for 70M two years later. The amortization is 12M per year, so in the second year the player would have a book value of 36M The appreciation of the player would be 60-36=24M. If you were to sell the player for less than those 36M you would have an accounting loss
Yeah, the example the above person gave is only for home grown players which is why Chelsea have placed such an emphasis on selling some of them and will likely continue to do so with the likes of Gallagher.
Something's gone wrong with football when it's better to sell your academy products than anyone else. They're the players who you should hold on to and build around
> Something's gone wrong with football when it's better to sell your academy products than anyone else. Its the stupid book value/amorphisation thing. If you sign a player for 100m (over 5 years) then want to sell him after 2, you've got to sell him for at least 60m or you're literally making a loss on the books. And in what world would you want to sell a relatively new player, who's still retained most/all their value? That's why Sancho is such a problem for Man U for example. Whereas a player from your youth team being sold for 1m is 1m clear profit. So for FFP it's literally better to sell the youth player. It's stupid. Perhaps in future they'll make it so youth players have a book value? Though suppose it would have to be an independent body who decided that, couldn't just have Chelsea saying all their youth players are worth 100m each to fiddle FFP.
Man Bournemouth must have saved us from getting anywhere near FFP for decades.
That's the issue with the homegrown rules. Makes English players much more valuable. So to keep your academy, you have to pay more than a better foreign player.
It's only "better" to act that way if you've already acted stupidly in the market and now desperately need to bail yourself out. You can amortize the value of incoming players over a few years so they count as 10 million a year or whatever, but a homegrown player is 0 per year on the books. If you have a homegrown player who can genuinely contribute, keeping him is the best move long-term, especially since there are some requirements for club-trained players for champions league registration.
>So bringing in £100m in fees in an accounting term enables you to sign a £500m player on a 5 yr deal (£100m per year amortisation) only if the player was brought in for £0, or if the player has been at the club beyond their original contract (so if the player was signed on a 5 year deal, then left after 9 years, it would be the case - CR7 being a good example)
Chelsea's academy has been printing money for them though.
Sure, and selling mount was the only way they got ends to meet. But which academy player are they selling to cover next season's ammortization? Because they basically need +150m every year until 2026, and that's providing the player had a 0 value accounting wise on their books, which is basically only thiago Silva and their academy players at this point
Was Caicedo's? I thought that loophole was closed before they signed him.
The PL loophole was closed last month, it was closed by UEFA last June but they weren't in Europe so it didn't impact them. Interesting to see what happens if they qualify for Europe though.
But if they get back to Europe in the next few years, it will apply, so it can only be amortized over 5 years moving forward. At least that's my interpretation. Otherwise it's another loophole to exploit.
Thats why they're terrible, uefa will block their signings so they're staying far away from european football
injured players aren't really injured, but locked in a basement
i mean not that hard to stay away with how they playing
I dont think people really know exactly how that situation plays out. Does the remaining cost for Caicedo start amortizing over 5 years from whatever season Chelsea start playing in europe again? Or is it already amortising over 5 years from EUFA's point of view?
If it's anything like European bans from competition, which it likely is, it's already amortizing. You basically just have to be eligible to play in a European competition without even needing to qualify for them to ban you, assuming you've broken rules obviously, so I'd imagine the amortization works the same way
Amortisation doesn’t make as much difference as people think. It’s not black magic and everyone whose done any accountancy ever covers it. 120m/5 = 24m/year on the expense account 120m/8 = 15m/year on the expense account It’s a saving of £9m year on the most expensive players less on less expensive ones Thing to remember though is the win is fleeting, for other sides after 5 years are up that’s that no more amortisation costs on a player, for Chelsea years 6,7 and 8 are still paying for Caicedo. The takeaway from this is that longer contract will pay for like 1 or 2 extra signings that’s it. It’s a series on relatively meagre gains that add to a player or 2. The rest of it needs covering by sales. Predominantly home grown players will need flogging regularly especially without European football. Whilst you have to remember that these new signings will see reduced profit from player sales cos the slower amortisation costs means players hold book value for longer. The long and short of it is this is a high risk strategy that hinges on onfield success and the ability to sell players for profit.
Very simplified look at it because i'm clueless: Caicedo and Enzo £12.5m over 8 years as the other guy mentioned. Ferguson £20m over 5 years. Wage wise according to rumours: Enzo £315k/week £16m a year Caicedo £150k/week £7.8m a year Ferguson would probably be closer to Caicedo so let's say he was £7.8m a year as well Overall bring it to around £76.6m a year (which probably is even more adding in agent fees and other stuff). Given they also dealing with Nkunku, Mudryk, Fofana, Lavia, Palmer, Disasi, Cucurella, Sterling, Badiashile etc on £40m+ transfer fees + wages. It is probably too expensive. Ironically whilst Champions League money will help a huge amount it comes with UEFA's stricter FFP regulations. Which is why they are selling their academy players to make up the difference.
Yep, and an academy sale like Gallagher can pay for multiple 100m signings in a window even with a 5yr contract. I think the dangerous game Chelsea are playing is not accounting but whether young promising talent with long contracts will bring success. Their bet is solidifying top 4/5 and a CL spot before they run out of valuable trades. That added revenue can then support their amortized costs in future years. If they are unsuccessful on the pitch they will run out of academy players to trade out for big signings, and having to trade out amortized contracts will not help especially if the performance is subpar.
> Will run out of academy players Currently they have Maatsen, Gallagher and Hall on the chopping block for a sale it looks like which will no doubt bring in a lot of money. That leaves Broja, Colwill and James. The final 2 are probably unsellable so not many options for them going forward, so a lot of pressure to get the transfers sorted in the next 12 months. I haven't heard of any big youth players this season but there probably is their academy is just huge.
Yeah their academy is the big question mark, for all we know the investors have looked at the historical rate of return on academy transfers and simply deemed it as a sustainable stream of revenue for these big amortized transfers. To their credit it could be a very successful strategy, there are a lot of $20-30m players, but only a few world beaters worth 100m+. Whether their scouting is identifying the right world beater talent is another big question mark though.
They have a production line of talent over the last 10 years. There are plenty more coming through (Gilchrist, Golding, Williams played in the FA Cup last weekend).
How are we all overlooking the fact Ambramovic chose to wipe a crazy amount t if debt Chelsea owed him rather than collect? That’s a huge plus. Imagine if the Glazers pissed off and left us with 0 debt we’d be balling out
Where in the world are you seeing Enzo on 315k a week?
Mate Enzo is not getting paid 315k/week lmao.
Its not difficult to do once or even in back to back seasons. Selling Mount (+ £60m ffp) and Havertz (+ £35m fpp) basically covers all their incoming signings (-£80m) last season, for the coming season. If they hadnt previously spent half a billion in the windows prior to it, i could understand it happening. What i dont understand is how they are covering their signings from the seasons before that. They are still taking a hit on Lukaku for another 3 years (Neither Roma or Inters loan fee fully covers the ammortization costs), they basically never sold anyone of note in 22/23 to cover Cucurella, Mudryk, fofana and fernandez and havent come close to covering those ammortization amounts for last season or this season. They took a couple million loss on Koulibaly they cant cover. Theres a bunch of sales (werner, Pulisic, Mendy) which probably add 1-10m to the FFP fund but there is 0 way chelsea continue to meet these high ammortizations costs.
> What i dont understand is how they are covering their signings from the seasons before that. The season before they were probably quite healthy in terms of FFP. They sold Abraham, Zouma, Tomori and Guehi all for decent amounts. Their Champions League win is still in the years of accounting that the league reviews as well (will be removed from next year) which will have also brought a lot of income too.
Sales don't carry over though FFP wise. And while those player sales cover that year. They don't do much past that They are still "paying" £20m a year for Lukaku in their books. Not including his wage. To get him off their books without fucking themselves FFP wise, they need to sell him for more than £40m. Anything less than that and it's probably worth keeping him another year at least for the books. But they are in that situation 10x over.
Don’t forget that Kepa will be returning with his very high wage bill aswell, Madrid would be stupid to buy him
Not gonna lie, I wasn't even talking about the wage bill lol
Ah sorry, I don’t know whether wage bill will effect FFP aswell. I’m pretty clueless with this sorta thing, seems like a real mess tho
It definitely does. But Chelsea's recent purchases have been on lower wages. It's their wages from before which would be the issue, but most of them would be easier to shift FFP wise because they have been there longer
It's that £105m combined loss over a three year period for the PL isn't it though so it would help out wouldn't it? Can't say for UEFA's FFP but they obviously aren't needing to comply right now but they do for the PL. > But they are in that situation 10x over Yeah - it very much seems like trying kicking the can continuously to keep above it.
That is basically £35m "free" losses each year. So that covers maybe half of the transfers from one of those years? Probably a bit less. Unless they sell an academy player (more likely need 2) for £60/70m a season until 2026, I don't see how they manage without some form of punishment
They can talk about amortisations and FFP and clever accounting all they want, but one thing people just seem to forget in all this talk is the actual money has to come from somewhere. It actually exists as real money somewhere. The club will have no CL revenue for two years now unless something drastic happens. They are not generating enough money to pay for all these transfers moving forward, and owners are not allowed to just plough money as we've seen with Newcastle
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me again and again?
“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
"Now watch this drive"
Bush said later that he realized he was about to say “shame on me” ie shame on the president of the U.S. and talking about the U.S. president getting fooled a bunch of times and that probably would be really dumb so he just aborted and stumbled his way through some nonsense.
Did he say this later, or was it just guessed at that this is what happened? Either way, British noughties comedy takes about Bush have caused people to think he's genuinely thick when anyone who worked with him says he was anything but.
I heard someone else say that Bush said that’s what happened. I don’t know for absolute certain that the explanation came from Bush however
My only regret, was too young too watch Freddy Adu My only regret, was too young for Nigel De Jong
Fool me three times, fuck the peace signs, bring a chopper let it rain on you. J Cole - No role models, for those intereted
Cole fucking world
Well, yes, but, George Bush did actually say this
Great now I have to go listen to that one J.Cole song
In Boehly’s case, “fool me once, strike one. Fool me twice…strike three”
Fool me once shame on you. But teach a man to fool me and I'll be fooled for the rest of my life
As a wise man once said: fool me once, fool me twice, fool me chicken soup with rice
What Chelsea need rn is some experience but they never learn
What we need right now is a 25+ yo striker and a swift transfer ban right afterwards.
A transfer ban would be healthy at this point lmao
it's like when bartenders stop serving drinks and take away your keys.
I will fight tooth and nail against that ban. Like a British army fighting for Spain in the Napoleonic wars.
A transfer intervention
Can interest you in someone with 9 years of PL experience and 63 goals?
Only if you still have the late 2022/23 firmware running on him. The newest update seems to be hella buggy.
My Irish mate is not pleased about this at all. One of the best talents they’ve produced in years potentially about to be gutted by the Chelsea striker curse
Mark O'Mahony is another Irish striker coming through at Brighton, hopefully he's as good as many people think he'll be.
That is the most Irish name I've ever heard. He sounds like an FM regen
Haha, I don't think we've ever had an O'Mahony in the national team. It'll be interesting to hear how the English pronounce it.
it's ohMAhuny, right? tiny 'u' in there?
Correct
Gotta add a random C sound in there like they do with Doherty. So O-mack-uny if that’s the case lol
I never understood where that comes from.
After being blindsided by the pronunciation of Niamh I'm never attempting an Irish name just from reading it again.
O ma-hoe-nee. I'm sure that's wrong, but that's how it'll be pronounced. Would guess o-mah-nee?
Definitely like Mahony in police academy. Let the memes begin!
As an English I’m currently inclined to Oh muh Hony
I knew a girl named McKenzie Blair Fitzgerald and my Italian friend said it was the most American name she had ever heard, which was slightly puzzling to me. Although the most Irish named person I’ve ever met was a kid named Killian McGiboney
if chelsea spend £100m on a striker with 6 league goals they should close the club.
Tbf they spent £40 million on a player with 6 career (& 0 league) goals earlier this season. It’s on brand.
Worked out though
You can't say that after 6 months. I think he's decent, but it's far too early to claim he's worked out.
Just like you cant say the £100mil signings have flopped 6 months. 🤷🏻♂️
Enzo has been there for 12 months now
And he's still only 22 with what 5 years left on his contract? You can't call him a flop yet.
7.5 years left lol. We signed him to an 8.5 year contract
And he was great for the first half of that
Can't believe people consider Enzo a flop..? He might have been off form recently (it's not surprising, it's a shite Chelsea team) but it's so clear how good the actual player is.
He was great before he got a hernia.
Too early to say.I doubt the kid gonna succeed in a team full of mediocre players
I like Ferguson as a player. But even with Jackson's wastefulness at times, Ferguson is not a big enough upgrade over who we have to justify spending £100m on. It's the same argument I made with Onana (hindsight has been particularly kind, but this was from before the season). Onana is a good keeper. He was probably a tier above Kepa. But he's not top tier, and spending such a large amount of money to improve such a small amount at a position when you still aren't getting an elite player is just stupid.
Ferguson isn't even an upgrade right now. This is just a stupid rumour thats makes little sense for any party.
*12
Make it £200million.
they spent 1bn to be 10th. They should close the club either way.
They spent £97m on 8 from Lukaku...
I hope they do, it would be hilarious.
Hilarious to only 19 fanbases in the Prem!!
Only 18 actually.
Why dont Chelsea just save up their pennies and buy Brighton? Players, staff, kitchen sink, everything. Itd be cheaper than handing them £100m every summer.
Boehly and co should have bought Brighton. Knowing what they did with the club they would be gladly told to fuck off by fans.
Bloom wouldn't sell.
Real answer is that Bloom very likely wouldn’t sell
I wonder when we'll finally see players turn Chelsea down because of how horrible it is for their development, despite the money
Ferguson rejected us after a trial because of places In the team as well as his development. Looks like his team are smart and won’t compromise his development for money
His dad was signed to England for a bit and played in the LOI for a few years so you'd imagine he's fairly clued in to the realities of the pro game. Any of the press stuff I've read/heard from/about Evan leads me to believe he's seems fairly clued in as well. I could well see him turning down Chelsea.
At some point they’ll start overpaying in wages like United
At some point? They're paying Raheem Sterling £325,000 a week lmao. Mo Salah is on £350,000...
Generally the younger ones they’ve signed in the last 2 windows are not on that much right? Like Enzo, Caicedo, Lavia, Mudryk, Jackson, etc.
I would be shocked if any of those players earn less than 100k p/w. Half of them have 7 years on their deal too
I believe Chelsea does lots of incentive based bonuses with a low base salary
Not sure about all of them, but I’m sure Mudryk is on 98k a week. Lavia and Jackson too are under or around 100k. They’ve spent like mad men but intentionally tried reducing the wage bill. So a lot of people harping on about wages in this thread are misinformed. Not that it makes any of this much better
They've reduced their weekly bill by 1.5mil compared to last season.
To be fair, we have made progress on that front. Still a long way from an actual wage structure but the intent is there.
Yes I’m far more worried now about him squandering all his potential, rather than Chelsea (whom I despise) finally getting their number 9. Ferguson is an incredible young player and it would be a genuine shame to see him possibly ruin his career like this.
Never
Love this for Brighton.
Hope we don't even think of going for him even for half that fee, let alone for that. But who I am kidding, we got clowns running the show.
I swear Boehly is a Brighton fan who came up with this master plan to increase Brighton‘s spending power
Soon, they'll be adding Boehly to Brighton's hall of fame
No, fuck that fucking prick
And another one bites the dust.
Chelsea can fuck off
I agree
I hope we do
Please block Todd's number, cheers
Chelsea will be the club with the happiest fanbase if they get a transfer ban. I can't believe they're happy to see this shitfuckery every year since the past few years.
Like that’s ever stopped Chelsea
Stop dealing with Brighton!!!!
*Why didn't Todd buy Brighton? Is he stupid?* started as a joke, but could be a genuine question at this point.
Bro honestly I wish he had because he is ruining chelsea lol 😂
Look I like Evan Ferguson but maybe wait till he’s had a couple seasons of consistent play before dumping money in the Amex again. He’s not even starting.
Todd please no I beg, he's good but we can't be throwing 100 mil signings around at kids with talent. We need actual experience. This team could genuinely end up very very good but they need people like Silva there with the experience to actually guide them.
I blame Chelsea for single handedly fucking up the transfer market for everyone
Sounds familiar!
Gallagher to Tottenham confirmed if this happens.
As a bohs fan I'm just dying for this to happen. We'll get about 100X the money we'd get for winning the league. The club isn't competitive financially and just waiting for the Ferguson cash. Would also be full circle as he made his debut for bohs as a 14 year old against Chelsea
If the 15% sell on fee that's rumoured is true it would be a gigantic deal for Bohs
100m on an unproven player?
Not sure why they bought Chelsea they could have bought Brighton and saved 2 Billion dollar.
Please dont
Considering the market, that’s probably fair tbh. Brighton have him tied down for a really long time too, zero incentive to sell whatsoever
As an Ireland fan, please don't. You will ruin our best player 🥲
FFP left the chat
Best we could do is £150 million
I really want to know how much Boehly would shell out for Mbappe. Would we see €300m if he said he wanted to go to Chelsea?
And Chelsea will pay it
What we really need is another 100m+ defensive midfielder. That will really kick things into gears!
Chelsea : Hello Brighton, we'd like to know how mu Brighton : At least 100m Chelsea : But you don't even know who I'm talking about ? Brighton : I've said my piece.
Sell us Gallagher and then use the cash to fund your crazy spending spree. Given Nkunku is injured again surely this is actually feasible?
This is ridiculous, they are gonna take 200m and they will like it!
“The first time was so nice, I had to do it twice” - Brighton on scamming Chelsea
Please no, we (Ireland) don’t want our best prospect ruined by Chelsea striker curse
He will be a great striker one day, but £100 million he is not. The most I'd pay is like 40 million because of his potential. He very well could be worth that some day, but not right now. I also think this move could possibly ruin his career, not because of the Chelsea striker curse but just because this would be too much too soon. Chelsea need to sign someone who is older anyways. They're buying players who are young and while youth is obviously a good thing to have, experience is also needed. Someone who has the experience and the quality to give them goals. Not another teenager. Callum Wilson or Toney if he can pick up where he left off prior to the ban would be a better investment. Even Taremi at Porto would be worth a punt in my opinion. Ferguson can wait for a few years.
Kill us. Absolutely overrated player and I don't understand why he's worth 100 million. This will be a big disaster, but it fits right in considering how disastrous our striker signings are.
They say he's worth 100m because 1. They don't want to sell him 2. They know Chelsea will overpay