Explaining how Chelsea shrewdly seemed to avoid FFP rules

The Pride of London explain, discuss and praise how Chelsea shrewdly seemed to avoid Financial Fair Play rules. The Blues have reportedly managed to spread payments to acquire more talent at higher prices than perhaps they would ordinarily have been allowed. This has, in turn, prompted a potential policy change from UEFA.

The question that has arisen with all this, is: ‘how have Chelsea managed to spend such ridiculous amounts of money to sign so many at such lofty prices than perhaps they would normally have been allowed to?’

The answer is Amortisation. In football terms, amortisation is spreading the payments of transfer fees. So for example,  Chelsea sign a player on a five-year contract for 50Million, 50K a week. CFC would be bound to pay 10M a season in transfer fees and 2.6M in wages. 12.6M would be spent on this player per season and these numbers would be used in FFP calculations.

So Boehly’s team were sharp-witted and managed to expose this loophole in the Financial Fair Play rules by handing out longer term contracts to their new signings. That is what stories would have you believe, anyway.

Mykhailo Mudryk signed the longest contract in the Premier League’s 30-year history after he was handed an eight and a half year contract. The West Londoners used the same strategy for their other signings Benoit Badiashile (seven and a half year contract), David Datro Fofana (six and a half year contract) too. Chelsea went about doing business with a similar approach in the summer as well where they handed Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella a seven and six year deal respectively.

This how Chelsea have managed to outcompete every other club over the last two windows. However the outfit’s spending has brought complaints from clubs concerned with CFC‘s policy to the Officials at European football’s governing body who are now planning to set a five-year maximum for the length of time over which a player’s transfer fee can be spread. However this can only be implemented before the summer transfer window.

This has lead Chelsea to now go all out and make use of this loophole while it lasts. Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Malo Gusto and Amadou Onana are reportedly on the radar. In fact, an agreement for Gusto appears imminent.