Chelsea: Football often makes their worst decisions when the cost is highest

Chelsea are on hold until at least April 30, per today’s decision by the Premier League, Football Association, English Football League and other stakeholders. This decision will cost millions of pounds, which is normally where football gets things the most wrong.

The top 10 goal scorers in the Premier League this season are very valuable, but did not cost their teams much at all. Leicester City bought Jamie Vardy for about £1 million, roughly what he spends each year on port, Red Bull and smokeless tobacco. Liverpool bought Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane for about one Tiemoue Bakayoko a piece (~£40 million). Manchester City paid the same for Sergio Aguero in 2011. Chelsea, Manchester United and Everton did not have to pay anything for Tammy Abraham, Marcus Rashford and Dominic Calvert-Lewin respectively, other than the costs of developing them, which they would have paid whether or not they have 40 goals between them. Only Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang cost his club a second-highest scorer in the league fee: about £60 million. That’s slightly more than a Jorginho, but still not a Kepa Arrizabalaga.

Similarly, let’s look at the players who have had the greatest impact at Chelsea over the last few years.

As both of our regular readers know, we downright get off on reminding people that Cesar Azpilicueta cost £7 million. N’Golo Kante cost less than Michy Batshuayi, Danny Drinkwater and Tiemoue Bakayoko. Mateo Kovacic and Willian, arguably Chelsea’s players of 2019/20, are in that same range.

On the other hand, scroll through the list of most expensive transfers at Chelsea, the Premier League or whichever club you follow, and for the most part, your thumb will get a good workout before you say “Yes! Him! Worth every pound, including those extra pounds we had to pay Mino Raiola to get him!” Whatever you may think of the inflation and distortions in the transfer market as a function of economics, it’s increasingly rare that anyone can develop a mathematical curve that shows a positive relationship between fee and performance from the £35 million range up to the £90 million range.

What’s this have to do with the postponement of all English football?

Well, the same people who make these transfer decisions – the people who placed a lot of money on Andriy Shevchenko, Radamel Falcao, Juan Veron, Angel di Maria – are the ones deciding to postpone the season until at least April 30, a decision that will cost millions of dollars (hundreds of millions?) and may lead to the demise of some clubs down the pyramid.

Early in the coronavirus panic, The Telegraph quoted a sports economist who said a prolonged shutdown could cause “multiple Burys,” a reference to Bury Football Club, who were expelled from the English Football League after 125 years for financial reasons. That scenario is increasingly likely, even with any relief measures from the government or cash transfers down the pyramid from the Premier League.

Football tends to make its worst decisions when large amounts of money are at stake. Rarely does an expensive (in purely financial terms) decision prove itself a smart value for the exchange.

And like many institutions that regularly deal in massive amounts, there’s not a whole lot of humility among football’s decision makers. Selection bias is one thing, but at some point someone needs to recognize that they blunder more with every additional zero after the pound sign. The more expensive the up-front cost, the more costly the consequences. The more low key, low cost and under the radar the decision, the more a club or institution looks wise and prescient down the road.

English football has made their choice. The cost of that choice in the context of their history with expensive decisions does nothing for a sense of confidence that they got this one right.