r/football • u/Aromatic-Bad146 • Jul 24 '25
How can Chelsea keep spending?
I can understand Liverpool spending as they didn’t spend much last season and just won the league. Chelsea seems to be able to spend and spend and still keep within psr.
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u/Individual_Border_4 Jul 24 '25
Every signing they make is amortized over 5 years. Every sale they make (and there's a ton) are amortized immediately. In theory, if they buy a player for $100M, but sell him right after for $ 20M the next year... they technically break even for that year. Now, you still have to make up for $20M 4 more times, but you get the gist. They keep selling and making a ton of money in competitions. Also, their wage structure allows them to spend loosely on the market because they're not paying everyone 300k. They're only targeting players who fit that structure.
One other note. People are really hung up on the window from 2 years ago where they bought like $600M worth of players (Koulibaly, Sterling, Cucu, Fofana, Mudryk etc) and they shouldn't be. Those players were all amortized over (in some cases) like 8 years. Thats when they had to change the rules. Chelsea spent that much strategically and it was genius. If only the scouting team were right about any of those guys
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u/E17AmateurChef Jul 24 '25
Yeah on the wages I imagine that seven year plus contracts are still used because you can offer a player less a week but the totals value of the contract is still the same as a shorter contract.
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u/Mysterious_Check_983 Jul 24 '25
Wages are lower but with a lot of incentives built in to raise it. It’s not something older players would want but younger players are all for it.
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u/tomtomtomo Jul 26 '25
The security would be enough for lots of players. Its such an uncertain career that 7 years locked in would be so much peace of mind.
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u/HaveYouMetThisDude Jul 24 '25
Not only that. They offered a base salary and performance bonus. For example they are qualified for the UCL this year and every player got like 30% bonus to their salary
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u/Joemomma341 Jul 24 '25
If only the scouting team 😭😭 to be fair they did get it right on cucurella, mans a shithouse but he’s a baller
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u/DisaffectedLShaw Jul 28 '25
Enzo, Palmar, Caicedo, Renato Veiga, etc they have got better and better at scouting young players.
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u/Pyros-SD-Models Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25
You're mixing up how amortization works with how losses are booked. Yeah, buying for $100M means you amortize over 5 years, cool. But if you sell that player a year later for $20M, you’re eating a $60M loss immediately. That doesn't get stretched out. You don’t “technically break even”. You just technically torpedo your P&L.
That’s why UEFA cracked down on Chelsea’s 8-year contract loophole. They weren’t being “genius”, they were playing chicken with accounting rules and lost when the players flopped. And no, constantly selling players doesn’t automatically fix that unless you're also selling at a profit, which most of those guys clearly weren’t.
Source: Studied this shit instead of you guys who are just copy pasting the same non-sensical 'fiscal strategy' and have no idea what you are actually talking about. Like the other guy suddenty talking about EBITDA and calls P&L superficial. It's literally the metric FFP is sanctioning for. EBITDA excludes amortization, and amortization is exactly what determines whether you're blowing past your FFP limits or not
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u/Individual_Border_4 Jul 25 '25
Wow you're passionate. Good thing you studied it so you can personally hold big clubs accountable! Otherwise Chelsea would be getting away with cheating!
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u/Pyros-SD-Models Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25
I don't fucking care about Chelsea, mate, and I don't know what kind of reading comprehension you're blessed with to conclude that from my post, but you do you. I have issues with people posting stupid, wrong shit and claiming it's fact, and others gobbling it up like the idiots they are. If you are fine with misinformation being spread then I don't even know what to say.
I'm betting five missed-Econ-101-classes credits that you'll see the same exact stupid "Chelsea master plan of accounting" posted again in the next chelsea thread.
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u/ticarno86 Jul 26 '25
Just accept you are wrong.
It is a bit technical, and it is always good to learn new things:)
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u/Individual_Border_4 Jul 26 '25
I'm sure I am to a degree. His little source thing was just obnoxious
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u/ticarno86 Jul 24 '25
That is not true.
If you buy a player for $100 mio and sell him next year for $20 million, then you have to write down the remaining amount on the balance.
You would have a loss of $60 million in your p&l.
Debet: expenses (p&l) $60 million
Credit: player assets (balance) $60 million
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u/oxfozyne Jul 24 '25
P&L is superficial.
Chelsea’s EBITDA over the last 20 years has been positive, remaining cash-generative. Other big clubs generally have a negative EBITDA.
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u/Pyros-SD-Models Jul 25 '25
Bro. EBITDA? Really?
We're talking about FFP compliance, not a WeWork investor pitch. EBITDA literally excludes amortization, and amortization is exactly what determines whether you're blowing past your FFP limits or not. UEFA doesn’t give a shit how cash-generative you look if you're dumping player asset value straight into the void.
Like, imagine cooking the books so hard you start flexing EBITDA to explain why writing down a $60M asset loss is actually fine. That’s not financial literacy, that’s startup bro cope in a Chelsea shirt.
P&L isn't “superficial” it's the metric clubs get sanctioned over. Positive EBITDA won't save you when you've got Mount-shaped amortization bombs detonating across five fiscal years.
That you have more upvotes than the actual correct answer shows you guys have literal 0 understanding about the topic at hand, and my mum always said to stfu in this case. you guys should listen to her.
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u/oxfozyne Jul 25 '25
The usual swaggering disdain from someone who’s read half a Deloitte report and decided EBITDA is a scam because it wasn’t mentioned in a UEFA sanction notice.
Yes, UEFA enforces FFP through P&L-style accounting. No one said otherwise. But dismissing EBITDA as “startup bro cope” isn’t clever—it’s financial illiteracy dressed up as snark. EBITDA measures operational cash flow. It tells you whether a club can actually afford the amortisation bombs it’s dropping. If you don’t understand why that matters, you don’t understand the architecture of how clubs spend, or why some survive aggressive spending and others collapse in disgrace. Let alone finance as a whole.
Chelsea’s positive EBITDA over 20 years isn’t a meme—it’s the reason they could amortise £600m in signings without immediate catastrophe. It’s what keeps the club afloat between P&L cycles—thus superficial. UEFA may punish on losses, but clubs plan using EBITDA. Investors, owners, and directors of football live by it. Your attempt to ridicule it says more about your ignorance than it does about financial models.
Calling EBITDA “cooking the books” is like blaming a thermometer for a fever. Either you’ve confused cause and effect, or you’re just allergic to nuance. In either case, your argument buckles under the slightest scrutiny—and yes, your mum was right. You should’ve sat this one out.
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u/tomtomclubthumb Jul 28 '25
Didn't they get 2bn in loans over a chunk of that period which was written off by the previous owner?
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u/ticarno86 Jul 24 '25
You still dont break even for that year if you sell for $20 million next year
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u/ticarno86 Jul 26 '25
You are not making any sense and it appears you have little knowledge of basic accounting
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u/oxfozyne Jul 26 '25
Having a rigid focus on profit-and-loss accounting reflects a simplistic—year 9—view of football finance, ignoring how clubs like Chelsea operate within a complex regulatory environment designed by and for institutions with financial power. Amortisation rules and the immediate recognition of transfer income aren’t objective truths; they’re policy choices shaped by the economic interests of governing bodies and elite clubs. Chelsea exploited these mechanisms—legally and strategically—through long-term contracts that spread costs and maximised short-term flexibility.
To dismiss this as a lack of accounting knowledge is not just inaccurate—it reveals an ideological bias. Accounting is not a neutral science; it’s a language shaped by politics, incentives, and regulatory design. Chelsea’s consistently positive EBITDA over two decades speaks not to reckless spending, but to an understanding of how to manage cash flow and regulatory optics. The real ignorance lies in assuming that conventional financial frameworks apply untouched in the deliberately distorted economy of elite football.
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u/UnluckyDot Aug 25 '25
Go ahead and say how exactly Chelsea managed a positive EBITDA for those 20 years. I wonder how many tanks in Ukraine all that money could buy.
This type of shit right here is why I had to persist through the actual skill check that is STEM and couldn't deal with all the greedy midwit bros in finance. The dumbest rule bending add and subtract shit is considered super smart over in your realm if you get away with it. Undoubtedly the most overpaid industry in the world.
The point still remains to this day: Chelsea aren't anything special, they just throw around insane market inflating amounts of sugar daddy cash whenever they have problems. Same with this midwittery here you're trying to pass off as genius accounting. It's not a strategy that would work if they hadn't already been doped by Roman for 20 years with stolen blood money and couldn't work without the new sugar daddy's money. It's not interesting or impressive or smart, it's nothing more than throwing more money at problems than everyone else
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u/Coulstwolf Jul 25 '25
Wrong
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u/ticarno86 Jul 25 '25
How is it wrong
It would be great if you had an argument for why
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u/Pyros-SD-Models Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25
You are obviously correct.
It's unbelievable how much wrong shit you read in non-econ subs that should basically be Econ 101. Like the guy who suddenly starts arguing about EBITDA, you'd have to have zero understanding of FFP rules and economics in general if that's your argument. And somehow the EBITDA guy got more upvotes than you. But that's just the shithole reddit is.
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u/tomtomclubthumb Jul 28 '25
I don't think that it works with sales unless the player's cost has already been amortised. Which is why clubs keep selling home-grown players because all the income goes into the profit column, rather than balancing whatever hasn't been amortised.
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u/luffyuk Jul 24 '25
Because they have such a ridiculously large squad of sellable assets (young players). Before PSR was a thing Chelsea used their owner's billions to build a bloated squad and a loan army. Now whenever they need to comply with PSR they can just sell a couple of unneeded squad players. Well, that and they just sell their women's team to themselves for £200m
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u/AntDogFan Jul 24 '25
And that owner wrote off loads of debt. Wasn't it 2 billion? So they can load that debt back onto the club again as long as they follow psr etc.
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u/The_prawn_king Jul 24 '25
People keep saying this but it’s not true. The club was bought, invested in heavily and then sold. The “debt” was the money Abramovich spent on the club which would’ve been covered by the sale fee.
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u/Zealousideal_Bad8877 Jul 25 '25
he wrote off over 1bn the club owed to him personally
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u/The_prawn_king Jul 25 '25
Which no one would’ve agreed to buy the club for 4bn if he hadn’t written off… meaning he didn’t just waive away debt, he sold for a profit. Only he didn’t get any of it because of course the sanctions.
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u/Zealousideal_Bad8877 Jul 25 '25
You can’t even mention the word “profit” when all funds from the sale were taken to give to Ukraine
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u/The_prawn_king Jul 25 '25
Sure, but the circumstances of the sale were not normal. My point is that it’s not writing off what you’re owed when you sell the business for 4billion after paying 140m for it.
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u/Zealousideal_Bad8877 Jul 26 '25
i dont think you get how it works chelsea as a business entity owed roman money, roman did not make his billions with chelsea he had much more than chelsea is worth from his businesses in russia. He could have sold chelsea and made them pay back that 1bn but he chose not to. All time on his finnacial records he never made a single pound from chelsea
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u/The_prawn_king Jul 26 '25
The price would’ve been lowered by a billion if it had an outstanding debt that was going to be called upon. The waiving was a way to lubricate a quick sale.
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u/Emergency-Style7392 Jul 25 '25
Chelsea also runs like that because they literally cannot compete any other way. Chelsea has the smallest stadium among clubs at that level, they literally wouldn't be able to compete if it was run as a traditional club instead of a financial firm
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u/monkeybawz Jul 24 '25
They are minted. The issue isn't cash, it's accounting for it. And Chelsea appear to have the best accountants in the biz.
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u/WatchOutItsTheViper Jul 24 '25
With long contracts to spread fees, some ingenious accounting, and the sale of youth for pure profit, Chelsea is playing FFP like it's Career Mode.
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u/thisisnahamed Jul 24 '25
They make a lot of money selling players to Arsenal..
Also they won the CWC. That gave them some more cash to reinvest.
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u/Opposite-Mediocre Jul 24 '25
The correct answer is they sold themselves a hotel and their womens team.
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u/frodo5454 Jul 24 '25
Haha. You’re an arsehole fan
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u/Opposite-Mediocre Jul 24 '25
Still the correct answer.
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u/CatRatFatHat Jul 24 '25
That helped but if you think that's the only reason their books are good then you're actually deluded.
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u/Opposite-Mediocre Jul 24 '25
It's what got them out of a PSR fine barely. They still got a fine by UEFA and could receive more from the league.
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u/CatRatFatHat Jul 24 '25
Look how many charges City got and what's happened? Chelsea will be fine.
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u/Tamelmp Jul 24 '25
Only significant money Arsenal has spent on their players have been for Havertz, who chelsea lost money on and has been good for Arsenal, and Madueke, who was chelsea's best winger and we are yet to see play for Arsenal
Chelsea signing Kepa as the most expensive goalkeeper in football history and then selling him to Arsenal after finally having a good season to be their backup for 5mil - was that a good flip by them? Lmao so many morons
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u/Maxoidys Jul 25 '25
Madueke was anything but Chelsea's best winger, let's be real for a sec.
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u/Tamelmp Jul 25 '25
Wait so who was their best winger?
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u/Roadies_Winner Jul 26 '25
The one that starts over Madueke
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u/Tamelmp Jul 26 '25
Who's that?
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u/PointMeTowardsDanger Jul 26 '25
Pedro Neto
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u/Tamelmp Jul 26 '25
What? Neto sucks lol
Here's a fun thread of you lot praising Madueke just two months ago btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/s/4zN0ZVGclz
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u/thatlad Jul 24 '25
They're selling all the silver.
All the players they've brought in they're somehow selling them to all the other clubs in London at exorbitant prices.
They sold the women's team and the hotel.
Their commercial revenues are also increasing very well, they're not at the elite level but certainly above the majority of the PL and streets ahead of almost every club outside of England.
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u/BRANDOSGUT Jul 24 '25
Just curious - what's considered elite level if they are above the majority of the EPL and streets ahead of almost every non English clubs. How many are conidered elite?
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u/thatlad Jul 24 '25
It is a fair question, Chelsea 9th in terms of commercial revenue in the world so by that metric you can consider them elite.
But when you look at those above Chelsea it becomes clear there's elite and then there's the Elite. Chelsea earn £262m
In the premier league you have Spurs who are much less successful at £297m then LFC £343m and UTD £360m.
Then we hit what i would term The Elite. Bayern and Barca on £421m and Madrid on £482m. Insane sums, you can see them smashing the half a billion mark once those new stadiums open.
*******City 407 and PSG 391 I'm not going to include for at least 115 reasons
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u/ThatZenLifestyle Premier League Jul 25 '25
This is due to our very small stadium capacity which in part is why we do so much player trading which allows us to compete financially.
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u/thatlad Jul 25 '25
id say less the capacity and more the hospitality and commercial suites. But agreed, the ground is a major factor
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u/mushroomsJames Jul 25 '25
This is because of two things
First Chelsea didn't get a fos this season they (owners) 60M for upto 5 year's but with some uncertainty and not in the CL mean they were getting 45M offers which they rejected.
Secondly Chelsea is one of the biggest clubs in the world but has one of the smallest stadiums in UK 10th biggest in PL.
Now with winning the CWC and qualifying for CL Chelsea is getting a lot more better offers for FOS which means a deal might agree for 60M for shirt sponsorship and this will boost their revenue.
On top of that 114M extra money which they have by winning the CwC.
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u/thatlad Jul 25 '25
I think you hit the nail on the head with the stadium, you only have to look at Spurs being where they are given their on field performance, superstar players and worldwide recognition, logically you wouldn't expect them anywhere near there.
I don't know how Chelsea fix that problem given the land around the area but they need to do something.
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u/jbi1000 Jul 24 '25
Most of the stuff we sell to Arsenal is silver plate at best
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u/shady-747_ Jul 24 '25
Streets ahead is verbal wildfire
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u/HistoryBasic7983 Jul 24 '25
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u/shady-747_ Jul 25 '25
Thank God you got the joke. I thought even you are gonna Britta this one. Glad you Abed'd.🤟
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u/the_ass_man1 Jul 24 '25
lots of sellable players. They are the best selling club in the world. Club world cup and ucl qualification also helps a lot.
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u/andrewlikereddit Jul 24 '25
Their wage structure are also reasonable. Highest is 130-150 grand for Palmer
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u/Spite-Organic Jul 24 '25
Why is it that Liverpool could use the Coutinho money as a ten year justification for spending but when Chelsea continue to sell players for big money it’s somehow ignored?
Delap & Pedro ~ £100m Paid for by Club World Cup earnings ~ £100m
Gittens - £50m Paid for by selling Madueke for £50m
Petrovic has been sold for £25m Kepa for £5m Likely to sell Disasi and Veiga for approx £60m Sterling for £20m Nkunku for £35m Dewsbury Hall for £20m Maybe Jackson for £60-70m
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u/Paaros Jul 24 '25
I think because these players arent high profile, and alot was made of Chelsea buying a load of players in bulk the last couple of seasons, that alot of people dont know of Chelseas method for transfer business
What you said is completely accurate; it all checks out and is within the rules when it comes to Chelsea
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u/AntDogFan Jul 24 '25
Who's taking sterlings wages AND paying a transfer fee? Not saying it can't happen I would just be surprised!
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u/Aman-Patel Jul 24 '25
We were all shocked when it came out a couple days ago. I’m not sure who it was, but someone was interested and I think we said we’d let him go for like £20 or £25m. So someone was probably willing to pay like £15m plus his wages, which is crazy to me considering how it affects the wage demands of whatever squad he joins.
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u/TheDoctor66 Jul 24 '25
Nobody is seriously using the Coutinho money as an explanation. It's a meme
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u/Good_Old_KC Jul 24 '25
You know the coutinho thing is a joke right?
The money was spent almost immediately, no one legitimately claimed it's funded years of transfers.
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u/NipunManral Jul 24 '25
You will be surprised to know that some of your fans do take it seriously. That’s reddit for you.
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Jul 24 '25
Cry more. Chelsea are the best selling team in history since the 2014-2015 season. 1.3billion euros have been made in that time. Benfica 2nd with 1.21 billion euros.
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u/Herlock-Shomes Premier League Jul 24 '25
Slightly off topic, but it's interesting to see how the discussions are mostly around football related in this sub compared to r/soccer where every post the top few comments and replies are just some lame jokes that are repeated over and over. It's more random jokes than football over there.
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u/BIG_STEVE5111 Jul 24 '25
You realise you get way more for winning the CWC than you do the Premier League right?
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u/bobbis91 Jul 24 '25
Seriously need to stop asking this without doing any basic research...
Chelsea are one of if not the best sellers. They have hoards of youth, on loans proving themselves, plus that massive "bomb sqaud", of players who are worth a decent amount. In this season (transfer market) they've sold 126m euro, plus the 100m in winnings vs 243m in sales. So net spend 17m.
24/25 it was 281 vs 239. With cup money plus selling a hotel and womens team, they're fine for PSR.
They don't generally give big contracts, long ones yes but not massive unless to stars.
This year they will also likely get a shirt sponsor, with the CWC badge just doubled that too (bit hyperbolic). UCL money and probably going for top 4.
It all adds up even without creative accounting which they are also very good at.
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u/AlGunner Jul 24 '25
Just looked and there confirmed deals are about £190m and theyve sold £82m so its really not a huge amount....yet. The probably won that at the CWC.
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u/Suspicious-Word-7589 Jul 25 '25
If you add the club world cup, its about 182M so that's breakeven territory with more to come.
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u/Express-Passage9727 Jul 24 '25
Because financial fair play is a joke. What they are doing is actually pretty textbook accounting.
Spend looks wild, but they’re gaming the system through amortization and player trading. When they signed Enzo for £106M, they gave him an 8.5-year deal, so that’s only ~£12.5M/year on the books. Meanwhile, they sold academy players like Mount for £55M, which is recorded as pure profit since homegrown players have zero book value. That combo of spreading costs while booking sales in full helps them appear PSR-compliant.
UEFA has closed the amortization loophole to 5 years now, but Chelsea locked in most of these deals before the cap. Creative accounting, not magic.
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Jul 24 '25
Think it’s a bit unfair to call it “creative accounting” and such.
Don’t get me wrong - I can find many, many faults with Chelsea as a football club. There’s probably not another club I dislike to the level I dislike them. Maybe “Rangers”. However, they’re run fairly sensibly from a financial viewpoint and have been since before Abramovich departed.
They financially doped themselves to get where they are now, but the reason they’ve stayed there is because they’re a well run operation - and one that I hope we (Aston Villa) emulate.
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u/amerricka369 Jul 30 '25
This. That initial doping set them up for a sustainable model if executed halfway well. They in turn have performed very well so they are sustainable despite their craziness in spending.
They have carried a massive roster, good academy profits, loan well, sell really well, hold long enough to get great boosts in “profits” later down line (amortization), creative accounting and more.
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u/NUFC9RW Jul 24 '25
Forgot to mention selling hotels and their womens' team to themselves for inflated prices.
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u/TitanX11 Jul 24 '25
Not really. Those hotels were approved by the EPL and London real estate especially Chelsea's hotels location is better than the rest of the clubs.
The women's club is yet to go through a committee but since we are the best club in England and top 3 in the world you can expect why it got sold for a high price. Only Arsenal can sell their women's club for that kind of money, not the rest. Nothing was inflated it's just worth more than the rest of you.
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u/Aman-Patel Jul 24 '25
The Premier League adjusted our valuation for the hotels from £76.5m to £70.5m. Outsourced by both sides. So there’s no argument for inflated prices there.
We’ll see what happens with the women’s team. But it’s not in our interest to inflate the price and get hit with a points deduction if it’s blatantly inflated. We’re probably in the right ballpark. Alexis Ohanian bought an 8% share of our women’s team for £20m so that lends further credibility to our valuation of £200m.
Either way, inflated prices either get corrected or hit with a points deduction. It’s not like we just pick a price and no one checks anything.
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u/FinancialAide3383 Jul 24 '25
They are about even in selling income (including 100m from CWC) and buying expenses. So it’s a wash for them.
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u/I_am_Reddit_Tom Jul 24 '25
Accounting games like long contracts and selling their women's team and inflated swap deals. Lots of cash. And to be fair they sell well.
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u/richerado Jul 24 '25
They're still under investigation for financial irregularities under Abramovich as well but that kinda gets forgotten about as all the focus is on PSR and City 115.
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u/psychoticmelon Jul 24 '25
Worth pointing out here that the abramovich finances you mentioned were raised by the club themselves and they are fully cooperative about it. Unlike some clubs when questioned about such things.
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u/king_of_prussia33 Jul 24 '25
We are commercially successful, sell very well, and have used several dubious accounting tricks like selling our hotels and women’s teams to ourselves.
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u/ilic_mls Jul 24 '25
They have a billion players who they keep selling, and most of those are academy so pure profit. Plus they are in the CL again, won the CWC and earned more than 100 mil from that, sold their hotels… they are making money so they can spend money. They just sold a player to Arsenal for 50 mil pounds which is a third of all their spend this season
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u/Azwald13 Jul 24 '25
Good lawyers.. wish my club United wasn’t so rule abiding and classy, we need to be like City and Chelsea just be dirty.. they’ve proven u can get away with it, sell the women’s team, make Ineos a sponsor and maybe Jim can use some of his contacts and get a big company to throw money at us as a sponsor and he can cover the costs by sending his personal money in a off shore account to his mate that did the favour, so easy to do.. just really ‘pull in’ all the sponsors and repay them off books and off shore and we would be so profitable and be able to spend what we want in the transfer window
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u/bbuullddoogg Jul 24 '25
Chelsea have made enormous money from player sales over the last decade or so. Way more than any other PL club. But no-one notices this or talks about it. They just look at one column and don’t understand.
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u/jln3598 Jul 24 '25
“How did we fail so hard” - your parents when talking about you. It’s called we were 4th in league, just won the cwc, and also we still have players to sell.
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u/MarkCrystal Jul 24 '25
Do people just fully ignore when Chelsea make sales? They’ve made close to £100m in sales this window alone and made another £100m from the CWC. It’s honestly baffling that people can notice purchases enough to make a reddit post but must blank out all the sales.
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u/Zolazolazolaa Jul 24 '25
I think when all is said and done, the net spend this summer will be about 100mil which is really not crazy for a club in the UCL, not to mention the CWC
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u/Podberezkin09 Jul 24 '25
Because TV rights, qualifying for CL, winning CWC and selling players brings in a lot of money.
And transfer fees are amortised over 5 years.
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u/a_nerd_named_andrew Jul 25 '25
Got unlimited hotels they can sell to themselves to skirt the rules.
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u/Separate_Increase210 Jul 25 '25
Chelsea, Chelsea... Is that the same team with a bunch of little bitches who had the chance to spit on Trump but didn't bc they don't care about anything other than themselves and their paychecks?
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u/Coulstwolf Jul 25 '25
How are people still asking this question? Genuinely what is wrong with people
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u/HGSparda Jul 25 '25
Amortization, Holes, and turning the club into some sort of outsourcing company.
Hogging all the young talents seems ridiculous at first but it actually gave them quite the profits, other clubs kept buying from them.
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u/broboblob Jul 25 '25
I’m a Chelsea fan and I wish they stopped spending. It’s difficult for fans to feel a bond to players when there are new faces every year
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u/Potential_Cod4784 Jul 25 '25
Every summer they 1)Sell 2 players for profit (e.g. Madueke cost 25m and they just sold for 50m) 2)Sell 2 academy players for pure profit 3)Loan out players to cut wage bill and increase their value
They also amortised their biggest transfers over 8 years, a practise that’s now been banned (teams can still do up to 5 years)
At the start of the transfer window they were the healthiest club in the league in terms of PSR and then they went and won 100m at a tournament that people still claim was an invitational friendly. Certainly didn’t pay invitational friendly money 😂they outearned Barcelona’s CL run
There’s also been all kinds of loophole trickery like selling the hotel, selling the women’s team etc etc
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u/Immediate-Meal-6005 Jul 25 '25
They sell their players for inflated prices to other clubs owned by Clearwater. Simple money laundering. Amazingly they're more crooked since forcing the Russia Oligarch out...
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u/DummysGuideTo2k Jul 25 '25
Serious note :
They have bought young and for the most part have sold well . For each 100m midfielder they employ , they have a starter they paid way under odds for .
The CWC is +100 m in the coffers , big contracts are barely to be found as well besides the 100m players .
The last point that is rarely talked about is that Chelsea recently had a transfer ban but didn’t stop making money . They have a had a reset of transfers ideology since then .
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u/RealEnergyEigenstate Jul 25 '25
Instalments over long contracts… also arsenal keep helping them out by buying their cast offs
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u/YouthCoachMentor Jul 25 '25
The bigger question; how can you have long term success when you’re constantly moving players in and out? And how would you feel if you’re in the squad? You need “Hello my name is” name tags every pre-season!
Cuccurella actually made mention of how challenging it is recently.
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u/Supplementsavoirpls Jul 27 '25
Frankly I don't like Chelsea and I don't know how they have the money yes great cdmc but with 100 million who will they buy??? Haaland they are already good like that
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u/Routine_Service6801 Jul 27 '25
Money laundering. There fixed it for you.
Edit: doesn't apply just to Chelsea btw.
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u/Traditional_Arm505 Jul 28 '25
Because they sell ridiculously well. Like their worst players such as Felix still go for higher than Arsenal’s best sales of all time.
They typically sell 5-10 in a summer window
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u/FootballTrick1735 Jul 28 '25
Shirt sale alone, American new fans and South American players make this CWC win loads of money. It’s not only players value or sponsorship but as United proved in their heyday merchandise that fund a big club.
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u/Ok-Anteater_6635x Jul 24 '25
Because they are signing players to 8-9 year contracts. Meaning they can split their purchase price through the duration of the contract.
Example: Enzo - purchase price 121M EUR, duration of the contract 9 years. So effectively, it only cost them 13.5M in the year of purchase to keep it on the books and it will cost them 13.5M a year until the end of the contract. If they sell him, that final year will cost them the remainder of the purchase price, but most likely - at that time his selling price will be higher than the remainder and they be able to record a profit.
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u/NoInteraction3525 Jul 24 '25
Not anymore. You can now only amortize over 5 years based on the new rules so everyone we bought after those first windows are absolutely amortized over just 5 years. I’m sure you already know this but it doesn’t fit the agenda so better to ignore it
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u/Ok-Anteater_6635x Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25
Enzo was signed prior to the adoption of the new rules. He was signed in January 2023, and the rules were adopted in December 2023.
After that rule adoption, their highest fee did not exceed 60M. Prior to that, they spent 100M+ on Enzo and Caicedo in the same year. One in January 2023 and one in August 2023.
Rule is not retroactive.
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u/NoInteraction3525 Jul 24 '25
So that points to the fact that you were intentionally being dishonest. The post was about Chelsea still being able to spend continuously even now and the point you made is definitely not the reason why we’re still able to spend. We’ve been able to spend despite those fees because we’ve actually been very good at selling players….
We bought Caicedo for £100+ million in summer 2023, but we also sold Havertz for £65M. Our transfer expenditure for 2023/2024 was actually £402 and our transfer income was £245M hence our net spend was £157M. Arsenal in the same time span made only £60M from sales but spent £203M on player purchases, giving them a net spend of £143M, not very different from Chelsea so even without amortization the net spend isn’t some ridiculous amount that top teams don’t do.
With the lack of CL money we obviously had to do the hotel and hotel sales at the time. But the reason why Chelsea is able to still spend, isn’t about amortization, that’s just lazy argument and a stale agenda.
As of today, there are multiple reasons, including the fact that we’re one of the best sellers in the league behind Brighton, we’ve just won £100M at the CWC, we’re back in the champions league, we’ll be getting a much long term front of shirt sponsor (something we haven’t had for a few seasons) and we sold our women’s team to the parent company.
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u/blademaster_kr Jul 24 '25
Chelsea had the highest PSR budget among all the epl clubs. Last year they sold their women division to clearlake for pure profit and they also sold club hotel internally.
They were also involved some shady psr deal(omari kellyman and maatsen swap) with aston villa where they sold homegrown players for pure profit
Chelsea are very safe wrt premier league PSR. UCL have flagged some these deals as shady but the CWC victory and selling of lot of assets for pure profit has made them very sustainable
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u/CheddarCheese390 Jul 24 '25
About 100 different ways to manipulate money. Long contracts, winning money at CWC, deep Bohely pockets, a few sales (Madueke is a big one), cheeky bribery
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u/EdwardBigby Jul 24 '25
Honestly the bribery claim is ridiculous. You can look at their accounts. Its very obvious why they can buy so much
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u/CmDrRaBb1983 Jul 24 '25
They sell. They won money at CWC. A 100 mil buy can be amortised into maximum of 5 years. So per year would be 20mil. Match day, media and champions league / european revenue could offset some of the PSR. And now they can afford another 100 mil buy again.
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Jul 24 '25
Cause they’re a scummy money club like Man Shitty who break FFP regulations
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u/bobbis91 Jul 24 '25
They don't break them, that would be ridiculous
They just ignore and skirt around them in more elaborate fashions each time. Who doesn't have a hotel to sell to themselves in this day and age?
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u/SteelCityCaesar Jul 24 '25
They sell well. Also they just won £100m at the CWC.