It is safe to say that Chelsea are not meeting expectations on the pitch right now. That is largely a result of the decisions that have been made on the pitch though. They have spent over a billion pounds building a squad that still looks short of first-team quality in most positions. Most fans thought that it was a bad recruitment strategy to begin with and those fears are coming true. The Club World Cup triumph seems to have only papered over the cracks for a little while.
On the commercial side of things, Chelsea have struggled badly as well. They have not been able to bring in a consistent front-of-shirt sponsor since the change in ownership.
The Infinite Athlete deal was for one season. And they played the majority of the previous campaign without one, with Damac coming in for only a handful of games in April.
Now, it looks like the club are finally set to agree a deal. But it falls far below the expectations that had been set.
Chelsea finally ready to agree £45 million deal
As reported by Football Insider, Chelsea’s front-of-shirt sponsorship is likely to be worth around £45 million. Talks are “very advanced” and a decision is expected in the “near term”.
Well, that is significantly lower than the £60 million figure that had been doing the rounds of the media for so long. In fact, it is not much higher than the £40 million-per-year deal that the club had agreed with Yokohama Tyres back in 2015, more than a decade ago.
While other clubs have been successful in agreeing significantly bigger deals since then, Chelsea seem stuck in one spot. And that means falling behind the rest of the pack. Also, one has to question whether extending this sponsorship deal search for so long was even worth it if the best deal the Blues could get was in the region they were always expected to be in the first place.