[Football] When will Chelsea go bust?

[RandyWanger]

In the NFL they have a salary cap which helps keep them in check. But if they get it wrong and tank the season they're rewarded with a 1st round draft pick, so no real worries of failure. f*** up here and you'll be trying to do it at Preston on a cold Tuesday night in December.

 

[Peter Grummit]

The peerless Swiss Ramble has done a deep dive on this. The short answer is that they must qualify for CL next season or they are in grave danger of being financially f***ed!

Will Chelsea's Transfer Spend Break Financial Fair Play Rules?

Dancing Shoes

swissramble.substack.com

 

[LamieRobertson]

These huge 8 year contracts they've decided to hand out lately to dodge FFP are a massive gamble. All well and good if they land a superstar who settles and performs, but if they end up lumbered with, say, a Lukaku on MASSIVE wages, who completely stinks the place out, and is contracted there for the best part of a decade, then well...good luck moving him on and getting him off the books.

Exactly the point Simon J made on TS this morning

 

[Surf's Up]

They probably won't go bust. Spend money today, reap the rewards in 10 years.

The plan is to buy multiple clubs, make them profitable in the long run and then perhaps sell them off in the future. Roman Abramovich appeared to splash obscene amounts of money on Chelsea with people thinking "this can never be financially sensible, he just wants a toy to play with"... but had he sold it under circumstances where he could actually get most of the money, he would have made a very nice profit however.

Same may well be the case if Boehly & co sell the club in 20 years, but much like with Abramovich (and various other club owners) some initial investment might be needed in order to make sure the brand remains strong (through good, valuable players and good results on the pitch) throughout the process of becoming profitable and/or selling it with a profit.

This is correct - fattening the club ready for market further down the line

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

The really funny thing about Chelsea is, for all the money spent, they don't actually have a striker. no one has better than 1 in 3. Havertz and Sterling have 6 goals each in 22 and 27 games respectively, then it's Aubameyang on three goals.

Mudryk looked BRILLIANT though to be fair.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

He thinks too much like an NFL owner- Those big multi year contracts may work for players who only play around an hour of actual gametime per season, as the average NFL player does,

I know next to nothing about NFL nor do I like it but if this is correct it's extraordinary. Why is this?

 

[Horses Arse]

These huge 8 year contracts they've decided to hand out lately to dodge FFP are a massive gamble. All well and good if they land a superstar who settles and performs, but if they end up lumbered with, say, a Lukaku on MASSIVE wages, who completely stinks the place out, and is contracted there for the best part of a decade, then well...good luck moving him on and getting him off the books.

Didnt we tie players to 10 year contracts? Relegation and having big financial commitments was then disastrous.

The money around and difference between clubs much less then, probably equivalent to not qualifying for CL these days. Fingers crossed

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Didnt we tie players to 10 year contracts? Relegation and having big financial commitments was then disastrous.

The money around and difference between clubs much less then, probably equivalent to not qualifying for CL these days. Fingers crossed

Is there anything about the Albion that Chelsea don't want to copy?

 

[Jim in the West]

The peerless Swiss Ramble has done a deep dive on this. The short answer is that they must qualify for CL next season or they are in grave danger of being financially f***ed!

Will Chelsea's Transfer Spend Break Financial Fair Play Rules?

Dancing Shoes

swissramble.substack.com

That's a fascinating (although quite a long!) read....the CL is a gold mine (£80m for reaching the quarter finals). And Chelsea have done incredibly well from developing youngsters and selling them on - £190m profit over the past couple of years (including selling Billy Gilmour to us - £9m profit). It's almost as if they are really a player trading business, with a football club as a side-show.

It'll be fascinating to see the impact on profits from having to manage the exits of some players in their (now huge) squad - ie, the risk of having to book losses instead of profits. Plus, of course, if they don't get to the CL next year, that's a huge hole.

 

[SUIYHP]

I know next to nothing about NFL nor do I like it but if this is correct it's extraordinary. Why is this?

The ‘action’ part of an average NFL game is about 11 or so minutes (this is a figure quoted by the Wall Street Journal- unfortunately the article itself is hidden behind a paywall), the reason for this is because the clock in American football keeps counting down whenever the ball is in play, so even if a player has been tackled and the ball is on the floor, the clock could still be ticking. The offence have to restart the action within 40 seconds, but most of that is taken up by teams huddling and deciding formations and plays, players coming on, players coming off etc.

The thing is- NFL teams have multiple ‘teams’ that have different roles, offensive lines, defensive lines and specialists (kickers, punters etc); those 11 minutes of time are actually broken up further, possibly around 3-5 minutes or so depending on the player (a Quarterback will spend way more time on the field than a kicker for instance)

The regular NFL season (minus playoffs, Superbowl or any of the other weird stuff like Pro bowl or whatever) is 17 games. So you are probably looking at the average player in a team that doesnt make playoffs getting about 51-90 minutes ish of doing stuff.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The peerless Swiss Ramble has done a deep dive on this. The short answer is that they must qualify for CL next season or they are in grave danger of being financially f***ed!

Will Chelsea's Transfer Spend Break Financial Fair Play Rules?

Dancing Shoes

swissramble.substack.com

Good luck with that then

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Part of me wants the ESL clubs to get their wish and play their little circle-jerk circuit of clubs ad-infinitum, have them kicked out of their national leagues, divorced from the football pyramid, and ineligible for any other European competitions.

I for one wouldn’t watch them, and I suspect they’d wither and die over time. Or beg to be allowed back, which should only be allowed if they start at the bottom of the football pyramid.

I’m not convinced there’s as much viewer appetite for it as the architects of the ESL believe there is.

And as others have already stated, this new attempt to game FFP is already being clamped down on.

As a football viewer, I have no appetite for the Champions League already, especially as it is hidden away on BT Sport.

 

[bluenitsuj]

As soon as possible hopefully

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

I don't see how Potter can fail with the squad he has at his disposal now, it's actually insane. Massive pressure on him for a title challenge next season.

I can. He has a FULL squad full of egos who will all want to play and he has only 11 places available. Good luck with sorting that lot out.

 

[southstandandy]

What they are doing is bending the rules to the 'n' th degree, but they are also effectively spending money in advance of the next transfer windows in the next 3 years of FFP. They will have to be careful then in future windows how much they spend as large sums will have already been 'pre-spent'.

 

[Justice]

The really funny thing about Chelsea is, for all the money spent, they don't actually have a striker. no one has better than 1 in 3. Havertz and Sterling have 6 goals each in 22 and 27 games respectively, then it's Aubameyang on three goals.

Mudryk looked BRILLIANT though to be fair.

Mudryk looked ok his best spell was against Milner who he could easily beat for pace, Klopp soon got Trent on then he wasn’t as effective. Interesting to see how he does in a full game.

 

[West Upper Seagull]

The peerless Swiss Ramble has done a deep dive on this. The short answer is that they must qualify for CL next season or they are in grave danger of being financially f***ed!

Will Chelsea's Transfer Spend Break Financial Fair Play Rules?

Dancing Shoes

swissramble.substack.com

Nothing would give me more pleasure than seeing them miss out on European football this season and CL qualification next season and become financially screwed as a result. I want them to implode !

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

The ‘action’ part of an average NFL game is about 11 or so minutes (this is a figure quoted by the Wall Street Journal- unfortunately the article itself is hidden behind a paywall), the reason for this is because the clock in American football keeps counting down whenever the ball is in play, so even if a player has been tackled and the ball is on the floor, the clock could still be ticking. The offence have to restart the action within 40 seconds, but most of that is taken up by teams huddling and deciding formations and plays, players coming on, players coming off etc.

The thing is- NFL teams have multiple ‘teams’ that have different roles, offensive lines, defensive lines and specialists (kickers, punters etc); those 11 minutes of time are actually broken up further, possibly around 3-5 minutes or so depending on the player (a Quarterback will spend way more time on the field than a kicker for instance)

The regular NFL season (minus playoffs, Superbowl or any of the other weird stuff like Pro bowl or whatever) is 17 games. So you are probably looking at the average player in a team that doesnt make playoffs getting about 51-90 minutes ish of doing stuff.

Wow, thanks for that informative answer! I cannot understand the reward in playing it simply for sporting endeavour, no doubt I will be corrected though.