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Chelsea FC has a problem.
Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly and his Clearlake Capital Group purchased the massive London club just over a year ago for over $4 billion.
They then proceeded to shell out a further $667 million to bring in new players to the club for both the present and the future.
That decision did not pay off.
The Blues suffered their worst season in three decades, finishing 12th in the Premier League table. Chelsea also fired manager Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter along the way before parting ways with interim manager Frank Lampard following the season.
Now the club are in a conundrum. They must improve significantly in 2023-24 in order to finance the spending they did the year prior. A top finish and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League is essentially to staying within UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Laws.
But to do so, the club must also bring in more talent. That means spending more money, and it can’t do that without first selling off much of its massive supply of dead wood.
That won’t be easy. For one, clubs will leverage Chelsea’s struggles and desperation to sell in order to get the best deal possible. Second, clubs outside of England have struggled massively from a financial standpoint in recent years. This severely limits the amount of clubs who could even afford to purchase and then pay the wages of these players.
Surprisingly, rival Arsenal appears ready to help Chelsea out with the purchase of German forward Kai Havertz.
But Chelsea also appear to have found another way out.
The upstart Saudi League, backed by the country’s Public Investment Fund, has recently purchased a number of star players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema. The country is hoping to raise the profile of its league.
As such, Chelsea appears on the brink of selling a number of players to Saudi Arabian clubs.
#Chelsea were originally presented with a proposal for Mendy, Koulibaly, Ziyech, Aubameyang and Lukaku to move to Saudi Arabia for one set fee that would probably have amounted to more than £100M. However, Lukaku made it clear he didn’t want to join.
[via @Matt_Law_DT]
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) June 19, 2023
Though perhaps its most difficult player to sell, striker Romelu Lukaku, rejected such a move.
The Blues still stand to clear more than $500,o00 of weekly wages off their books in the moves. And fans of other clubs are having a hissy fit over it.
Kalidou Koulibaly is 32 years old tomorrow. He is Chelsea's 2nd highest earner. Nobody wanted him. Saudi Arabia's government are buying him to protect their investment in Chelsea.
€30m for a 32-year-old, who nobody wants, on bumper wages. If you can't see it, you're an ostrich.
— Paddy (@OddsOnFPL) June 19, 2023
Chelsea aren’t the first or last team to take advantage of high spending teams in the Middle East or China, but the links between Boehly and Saudi and the fact that it totally bails out their horribly misguided spending of the past 2 years is naturally frustrating for other fans.
— EiF (@EiFSoccer) June 19, 2023
People getting outraged by Saudi connections to Chelsea and Chelsea selling players there…..when will be people understand football sold it's soul to money years and years ago. The game's the game. Deal with it
— Mark Goldbridge (@markgoldbridge) June 19, 2023
Ultimately, the deals are consistent with others that the Saudi League has made in recent months. And none of the moves appear to be significantly above market value for the rumored players.
But it sure looks like Chelsea has found a shrewd way around a potentially massive problem.