Mudryk has joined on an 8.5 year contract. Is everyone else missing a trick, or have Chelsea gone a bit mental with this new 7+ year contract strategy?
Chelsea's contract strategy
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) look forward to a new life under Ruben Amorim. What system will we be playing? What players will impress? and how will it all go? We also say goodbye to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and review United's 3-0 win at home against Leicester City.
Id wager Boehly doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Seems more likely than literally everyone else in world football being wrong.
Huge gamble
They're either a lot smarter or a lot dumber than everyone else. I know what I'd put my money on.
It will be amusing if they get a few Winston Boagarde's amongst all of these long contracts.
He must be insane
It’s a way to get around FFP.
If you spend 80 million and put someone an eight year contract, your FFP position is minus ten million a year.
If they’re on a four year contract, it’s twenty million.
It is quite literally taking away from future signings though and IMO a horrendously short term idea.
Previously similar spending has destroyed smaller teams like Stoke and Fulham who ended up with a lot of players on contracts who they couldn’t shift. Barcelona famously were in trouble with this earlier this year.
If you spend 80 million and put someone an eight year contract, your FFP position is minus ten million a year.
If they’re on a four year contract, it’s twenty million.
It is quite literally taking away from future signings though and IMO a horrendously short term idea.
Previously similar spending has destroyed smaller teams like Stoke and Fulham who ended up with a lot of players on contracts who they couldn’t shift. Barcelona famously were in trouble with this earlier this year.
If he is not on high wages and they rate him so very high, it makes sense to me
Doesn’t inspire a long term vision of sustainability and success.
I didnt know Clearlake are funding this with a £800m loan either. Not sure what’s going against the club but it will need paying back at some point that’s for sure.
Why did this need a new thread since I literally posted this in the dedicated Chelsea thread 
The likelihood of a €100m transfer not being on high (or at least moderately high) wages seems pretty low, no?
Depends how it's structured. If spread out the payments will be small each year, if he doesn't work out they will sell on and tie up the transfer. It's a way to get another player in and gamble.
He’s not going to be picking up a low wage. Why would he commit himself to that for nearly a decade?
Yeah big risk isn’t it. They’re relying on these players being successful. Players who will be comfortable and have no fear of being sold. Because if they flop and refuse to leave their bumper contracts, Chelsea basically can’t replace them
I guess if you’re banking on a big increase in tv payments over the next seven years it could work? If revenues go up so much that in the future the circa 40 million a year payments aren’t as damaging as they are in 2023?
Big gamble. And if revenues drop they’re in for a rude awakening.
to be fair, they even keep the players they don't need for an insane amount of time. Batshuayi has been under contract there for six and a half years and he still has one and a half to go. Abdul-Rahman Baba has been there for seven and a half years. It's just two examples and they obviously have about 79 loans between the two of them, but they've always seemed to operate a bit differently than most other clubs.
I wonder if these players have some natural break clauses built in - like minimum fees that kick in after 4/5 years.
Can see lots of players going to rot
Can see lots of players going to rot
I am a bit confused. All their signings have been silly money signings. Basically they cough up money no one would give and get their player. Are they suddenly having ridiculous amount of legit funding?
Aye, I would say it is a solid idea to put one or two high profile young signings on such contracts, but not pretty much all of them and in the time span of one year.
Clubs also know they need to get rid of half of their team, so everyone will try to lowball them while on the other hand every club is taking them to the cleaners because they are willing to overpay.
People say Boehly is rich and knows how to run a business. Am struggling to see the sense in it. At the bare minimum, it is risky as feck.
I think its a decent strategy to reduce the impact of amortisation of big money signings on annual profits. The only major source of risk is the player not panning out as it would be near impossible for them to move the player on without a significant loss so its a strategy thay will only work for players for which the club have very high conviction. If the player pans out, this is to their benefit. The stuff about them being quoted extreme prices for whoever they go after is neither here nor there. They are a big 6 PL club. They already get quoted higher prices than other clubs for the same players.
Think its something other clubs will start doing for big money signings.
Think its something other clubs will start doing for big money signings.
It is to do with FFP. You 'lose' less value from the asset (player's transfer value) each year, the longer the contract.
This is just a book loss but it plays into annual accounts which affect your ability to spend on transfers and wages.
This is just a book loss but it plays into annual accounts which affect your ability to spend on transfers and wages.
They'll have special clauses in them, Boehly being the clever lad that he is. More salary up front with less in the final years, a penalty clause where the club has to pay them £50M if they don't make it to the Super Bowl playoffs, player gets to pick the half time performers etc.
He is coming from the Ukrainian league so his wages won't be so high. I've read Arsenal were offering around 50k per week, not sure what Chelsea are giving him.
Obviously they are doing it from FFP point of view. But a project signing like this could be one of the safer ones to try this with
If you think he’s tying himself up to 8 1/2 years at 50k per week…
The player and agent would be stupid.
It works brilliantly if they all actually stay for the duration or make profit on them.... otherwise you're Barcelona and paying £25m for Countinho without him being around properly for 3 years. (Even with the sale, they are losing on him this year too £25m - £18m fee to Villa = 7m on the books), as well as others of course.
It'll be structured and have milestones built in and probably cancellation clauses, this is a very common thing in US sports and given Boehly is American it's maybe not that surprising
No wonder that he accepted Chelsea offer if true. I mean Tuanzebe is on 50k.
Could be an American thing as we do long multi-year contracts in the US, so perhaps he's stuck in that mindset that is complicated due to luxury tax and salary cap management.
The 80 million signing for 50k a week...give me a break.
It was 70 million euros upfront and although I've genuinely not seen any wages mentioned, I'd be astonished if he's on less than £150K a week (he's got a shitty agent if he is).
Yeah it'd have to be an insanely bad agent to sign up for that..
(2 years in) "My clients score 883 goals this year, Madrid are sniffing....."
Chelsea "So what, he's tied down for 6 more years"
(2 years in) "My clients score 883 goals this year, Madrid are sniffing....."
Chelsea "So what, he's tied down for 6 more years"
Wasn’t part of the agreed sale £1bn investment to be done within five years or something?
Boehly has to pay up as per agreed terms. How he is paying up is the kicker.
Proper monkey paw wish this. You get £2bn invested in your club but it’s all on dross.
Yeah the 90 million signing has to be on at least 200k a week.
Anthony must be on 600K a week, given that he cost £190 million.
Signing for 8.5 years I doubt he's on less than 250k, else he'll want a new contract in that time and signing for shorter makes a lot more sense
Why did this need a new thread since I literally posted this in the dedicated Chelsea thread
People love creating threads is the answer
Or there have to be guaranteed raises. The player would need a serious incentive to sign such a long term contract and it would have to be above and beyond the norm otherwise why would he sign.
He’ll probably listen to them crying for Enzo. I pray they don’t get him.
A manager on the verge of the sack buying random players, only for a new manager to come in and change the system, needing more players and not wanting these players Potter bought. Chelsea are weird.
You're assuming Potter actually has any influence in this sort of decision making.