Chelsea transfers: Barcelona situation is a warning to others
Chelsea is a club that has been well-respected in world football since the moment Roman Abramovich took over as owner in 2003. John Terry, Frank Lampard and Eden Hazard—along with managers like Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel—have helped bring in trophy after trophy over the years. The Blues have been the most successful club in English football ever since the Russian ruined football. Yet, despite all of this, Chelsea does not sit amongst the game’s royalty.
It’s an undeniable fact that football fans have almost all surely realized by now: Barcelona and Real Madrid are the two superpowers in world football. Lionel Messi’s rise to stardom and god-like presence at the former has seen the Blaugrana fill trophy case after trophy case since the turn of the century. Any list compiling the best Barcelona side’s in history are sure to include Pep Guardiola’s 2020/11 miracle men, as well as a handful of others since 2004/05. It is for this reason the La Liga giants were always looked at as an example of how to properly run a football club. Nowadays though, the Blaugrana are setting a different standard.
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Chelsea needs to steer clear of mirroring Barcelona’s transfer decisions.
A recent social media thread dove into just how deep the financial troubles are getting at Camp Nou. Even though the club has signed Memphis Depay, Sergio Aguero and Eric Garcia on free transfers, the players physically cannot be registered until the Blaugrana reduce their wage bill by €200,000. They have made world class individuals available for pennies on the dollar, offered to mutually part ways with others and even completely terminated the contracts of some. Barcelona is now likely to be sued by Matheus Fernandes for unjust dismissal and that’s the least of the club’s worries at the moment. Meanwhile, the best player in the world, Messi, remains unsigned.
The collapse of the Catalonian empire has put the world on high alert as shades of 2010s AC Milan begin to surface. The club many are looking to as the one that should be most concerned is Chelsea.
The Premier League is not as specific as La Liga when it comes to financial restrictions; nor is it as odd. England’s top flight abides by the rules UEFA sets out for it in regards to Financial Fair Play. It is these principles that’ve helped the Blues stay out of trouble and achieve financial stability over the years. Abramovich, Marina Granovskaia and the Chelsea board have run a tight ship in terms of player personnel, despite changing managers seemingly every season. The Blues have gotten rid of some genuine world class talents—such as Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah—during this time, but it’s also allowed them to win countless titles, as odd as that may sound. Player sales are up there with sponsorship deals and television contracts as Chelsea’s most efficient ways of making money.
This is all something to consider as the sun sets on the first seven days of July. Many supporters are becoming increasingly impatient with the Blues as things remain quiet on the transfer front. There are comparisons being made to Conte’s 2017/18 transfer window and cries of a club being mismanaged. In reality, those claims couldn’t be further from the truth. Chelsea is coming off its second Champions League victory in club history, this triumph coming with a young nucleus beginning its journey as opposed to an aging core trying to give the competition one more major push. Things have seldom been this exciting at Stamford Bridge before.
The Blues aren’t trying to play FIFA’s ‘Career Mode’ like the Barcelona’s and Paris Saint-Germain’s of the world. They’re simply being selective about who they pursue. The Achraf Hakimi saga is a perfect example of this principle. Tuchel currently has Reece James (21) and Cesar Azpilicueta (31) at his disposal on the right side of the defense, there is no way to financially justify the Blues paying €70+ million for another right wingback when there are more pressing needs in the team. In a few years’ time, fans will look back at this as a bullet dodged. When PSG becomes the next Barcelona—who was the next Milan—it’ll finally click. Granovskaia and Co. are running a business, running it with perfection and it’s producing the desired results on and off the pitch.
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The fact of the matter is Chelsea cannot spend £250 million on six players—like it did last summer—every window. The Blues need to offload players first and those sales will help pay for the two or three elite individuals the team purchases. Anyone getting angry at the inactivity thus far simply needs to take a deep breath and look over at Barcelona right now. Things may be bad in SW6 in their eyes, but the Blaugrana are showing us that things can always get worse.