Why Chelsea believe their £900m transfer spending is within FFP rules
For the third transfer window running, Chelsea’s spending is the talk of football.
More specifically, it is Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s seemingly insatiable appetite for large transfer fees that is dominating the conversation.
A deal worth £115million ($146m) for Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo has ensured that Enzo Fernandez held the British transfer record for just six months following his £106million move to Stamford Bridge. Liverpool, edged out in that pursuit, now appear to have been deprived of their secondary midfield target after Southampton’s Romeo Lavia also made his preference Chelsea in a move that will be worth £50million plus add-ons.
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That means Boehly and Clearlake have committed north of £300million in transfer fees on central midfielders alone in 2023 once deals for Lesley Ugochukwu and Andrey Santos are factored in. Overall the numbers are even more staggering: Lavia will take the total transfer fee commitment past the £900million mark since Chelsea’s new American owners assumed control in June 2022 — and they are not done yet.
A new goalkeeper should replace the loan departure of Kepa Arrizabalaga to Real Madrid, and the club would like to add two more attackers — and all this without the revenue from a primary shirt sponsor (yet), or Champions League participation in 2023-24.
No other club in the world is operating this way, and it is fair to say that Chelsea’s approach is ruffling feathers. There are growing whispers of rival clubs complaining to the Premier League about their spending, the manifestation of a broader disbelief inside and outside the game that such outlay could possibly be compliant with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations, which allow clubs to lose around
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