Transfer: Winter Transfer Rumors and Discussion - January

[Peen]

The Madueke signing is a big whatever but I'd be happy about all the rest, fees aren't your problem to deal with. Madueke is very fragile so we'll see how that goes.

That and the enormous loan fee for Felix.

There’s been murmurs that Felix really has enjoyed his early time here and that there is an understanding that they will make a deal happen if both Felix/Chelsea want it…

… but it still doesn’t make sense from a foresight perspective given the positional overlap with current players & the fee paid

and we have nkunku coming in the summer as well

still funny that before his first half, the two most threatening attacking performances prior were lukaku v arsenal and pulisic’s 2020 bubble performances (e.g. liverpool).

Chelsea spent more money than any other team has ever spent in a single transfer window. And they did it twice in back to back windows (only Real Madrid in summer 2019 spent more than they did this past summer). So to be clear, they have 2 of the 3 highest spending windows of all time.

Were they given a free run or just unlimited resources to overpay for players?

Both? The only competitor in any of the winter deals was Arsenal for MM, and it’s not like there was a substantial difference in the fees offered.

 

[Savant]

Chelsea spent more money than any other team has ever spent in a single transfer window. And they did it twice in back to back windows (only Real Madrid in summer 2019 spent more than they did this past summer). So to be clear, they have 2 of the 3 highest spending windows of all time.

Were they given a free run or just unlimited resources to overpay for players?

They were given a free run. No one else bothered to try any of the amortization shenanigans. So they ran wild with it. Can’t blame Chelsea for it.

 

[Peen]

There are some murmurs from a low tier chelsea source that we also signed 17yo southampton striker Jimmy Morgan.

Reports surfaced a week ago that he wanted to move on with 18 months left on his contract.

 

[KJS14]

Both? The only competitor in any of the winter deals was Arsenal for MM, and it’s not like there was a substantial difference in the fees offered.

Fair enough, but I don't think you can call other teams not having / not wanting to drop 120M on a player in January a free run. You can make that argument on the other deals, but I don't think they went out and got any bargains either.

And debatable on the "not a substantial difference." There was enough of a difference in the deal structure and achievability of add-ons that Shaktar only accepted one team's offer.

They were given a free run. No one else bothered to try any of the amortization shenanigans. So they ran wild with it. Can’t blame Chelsea for it.

UEFA should have implemented those new guidelines immediately instead of giving Chelsea a one window shopping spree to keep exploiting it.

 

[Blender]

UEFA should have implemented those new guidelines immediately instead of giving Chelsea a one window shopping spree to keep exploiting it.

That sounds more like something the NHL would do where they change the rules mid event and then retroactively punish teams.

 

[KJS14]

That sounds more like something the NHL would do where they change the rules mid event and then retroactively punish teams.

They could have just implemented it immediately with no retroactive punishments. I think that would make more sense than giving teams a "get your FFP avoidance schemes in now or never" announcement.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Sour grapes.

 

[KJS14]

Sour grapes.

Yes, I'm sure most people wish their team could spend 600M in 6 months. That would have been at least 10 levers for Barca.

 

[Savant]

Fair enough, but I don't think you can call other teams not having / not wanting to drop 120M on a player in January a free run. You can make that argument on the other deals, but I don't think they went out and got any bargains either.

And debatable on the "not a substantial difference." There was enough of a difference in the deal structure and achievability of add-ons that Shaktar only accepted one team's offer.


UEFA should have implemented those new guidelines immediately instead of giving Chelsea a one window shopping spree to keep exploiting it.

UEFA doesn’t give a shit. FFP isn’t real. They’d rather have a team creating headlines. It’s amazing they even want to close the loophole.

The loophole was there for everyone to use, only Chelsea did it. That’s not a Chelsea problem

 

[bleedblue1223]

It's not even a loophole, it's basic accounting.

 

[KJS14]

UEFA doesn’t give a shit. FFP isn’t real. They’d rather have a team creating headlines. It’s amazing they even want to close the loophole.

The loophole was there for everyone to use, only Chelsea did it. That’s not a Chelsea problem

It's a loophole you can exploit if you're willing to pay an extra 3 years of guaranteed wages to a player that might not pan out. Not every team can do that.

It's not even a loophole, it's basic accounting.

It's manipulative accounting. Can't say I'm the most well versed in soccer accounting, but in real accounting you'd have to estimate the useful life of the asset no matter the contract length. And I'd argue there's some good evidence that the "useful life" of a player bought by Chelsea hasn't been 7-8 years.

Also, if it wasn't a loophole, why is it being closed?

 

[bleedblue1223]

LOL.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

They were given a free run. No one else bothered to try any of the amortization shenanigans. So they ran wild with it. Can’t blame Chelsea for it.

Isn’t it worse if they had a free run and spent those figures?

 

[KJS14]

Isn’t it worse if they had a free run and spent those figures?

This.

And again, I don't think you can classify spending 9 figures on players with a known release clause as a "free run." Unless we also think PSG got a free run at Neymar, or Barca got a free run at Coutinho. There's not generally competition for spending that much money.

 

[Chimaera]

I don’t really care. I think it’s bad for the health of the game, but others would and likely will do the same. It’s bad because they just lit more money on fire after already lighting it on fire. Sure, they can cook the books, and FFP has never meant much, but there’s a good chance it blows up in their face. In the short term, I’m all for clubs getting their max value from Chelsea, but in the long term, it’s going to push up prices for everyone. That’s fine and all, but not all clubs have sugar daddies or equity firms to bail them out. You also will likely see more scammers who really don’t have the money run clubs into administration again. But it’s what it is at this point.

Overall, I like some of the moves, but I don’t think any of it is planned. I think it only furthers the chances the manager gets the boot. I don’t know that they’re any better off than when they started, and they likely have 7-8 players they’re going to have to basically pay to go away.

 

[Savant]

Isn’t it worse if they had a free run and spent those figures?

Not worse, just different kind of bad

 

[S E P H]

Am I happy about the Enzo signing? Absolutely.

Am I horrified about the amounts of money set on fire this January (and last summer) with seemingly nothing coherent about any of it? Absolutely.

You lot did fix some issues like on the CB and CM. I still question the goalscoring prowess of your club, but the other areas got better. I am expecting Osimhen for another 90+ million in the summer with a lot of losses on the players that need to be sold like Auba, Loftus-Cheek, Havertz, Ziyech, and Pulisic. Chances you lot also sell a goalkeeper, Kante, Kovacic, and one of Gallagher/Mount. There are so many bad buys though, Koulibaly when you lot have Chalobah, Cucurella (one of the worst I've seen in the last couple of years), Zakaria, Santos (when you have Mount), Havertz, Ziyech, Auba, and Werner (could add Kepa too).

You lot have a huge arse squad though, damn...I am going through it on transfermarkt and looks like a "missing person" graphic lol.

It's not even a loophole, it's basic accounting.

I agree with KJS, signing players to 9-year contracts is definitely a loophole that UEFA should've closed the day that Chelsea was taking advantage of it. Or get rid of it outside of FFP, I am not sure why contracts are so influential to FFP in the first place. A team should be allowed to sign a player to a 15-year contract since the sport doesn't have a hard cap.

 

[KJS14]

I agree with KJS, signing players to 9-year contracts is definitely a loophole that UEFA should've closed the day that Chelsea was taking advantage of it. Or get rid of it outside of FFP, I am not sure why contracts are so influential to FFP in the first place. A team should be allowed to sign a player to a 15-year contract since the sport doesn't have a hard cap.

If I'm remembering it correctly, you can still sign players to longer contracts. They just changed the FFP rules such that you can only amortize the transfer fee over a maximum of 5 years for FFP calculations.

Basically the Enzo transfer would be a 24M per year (120M / 5 years) "cap hit" for FFP purposes under the future rules instead of 14M per year (120M / 8.5 years) under the current rules.

 

[Blender]

It's manipulative accounting. Can't say I'm the most well versed in soccer accounting, but in real accounting you'd have to estimate the useful life of the asset no matter the contract length. And I'd argue there's some good evidence that the "useful life" of a player bought by Chelsea hasn't been 7-8 years.

Also, if it wasn't a loophole, why is it being closed?

You'd also have to factor in what we sold players for in this fictional scenario, and Chelsea has sold even some junk for sizable fees. Funny how that part is always forgotten about.

 

[KJS14]

You'd also have to factor in what we sold players for in this fictional scenario, and Chelsea has sold even some junk for sizable fees. Funny how that part is always forgotten about.

For the record, I don't actually expect to see teams start estimating the useful lives of their players (nor would I propose that they should), because that's not practical. But you can't say "it's not a loophole, it's accounting" when the governing body has already decided that the loophole needed to be closed.

 

[bluesfan94]

They literally said “my source told me the deal had been done for hours” they stretched it out. They milked it for content. You can say I’m right. It’s okay. My point was that they didn’t spend all day working on this. I’m right. It’s okay. This wasn’t a chess match

No, they said the principle of the deal was agreed to an hour before the deadline.

 

[bluesfan94]

They were given a free run. No one else bothered to try any of the amortization shenanigans. So they ran wild with it. Can’t blame Chelsea for it.

It’s not just about amortization. It’s about an owner willing and able to spend 600 million in seven months.

 

[JeffreyLFC]

It's not even a loophole, it's basic accounting.

It's a loophole of FFP not in term of their financial statements.

 

[Evilo]

UEFA doesn’t give a shit. FFP isn’t real. They’d rather have a team creating headlines. It’s amazing they even want to close the loophole.

The loophole was there for everyone to use, only Chelsea did it. That’s not a Chelsea problem

I'll repeat, only for the EPL teams.
Rest of FFP is real for teams that want to spend but aren't allowed to.

 

[Chimaera]

We also get the positive of new Chelsea supporters getting to experience what it was like in the original Roman spend like a drunken sailor days. Lot of them weren’t even alive when Chelsea originally tried to break football.