Everyone’s been on the edge of their seats since UEFA announced what the FFP or Financial Fair Play Rule’s going to be out. Once the news got around , footballing fans made it clear that a majority of us will always fall under the category of being fickle. There were the safe ones that comprise of Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and the other Premier League teams that don’t supposedly buy players and then we had City and Chelsea who would have Michel Platini knocking on their doors with a large bottle of Cheval Blanc 1947 to bring the good news.
However the story is quite different, at-least when it comes to Chelsea. United and Liverpool aren’t exactly safe, but that’s an entirely different story which doesn’t come under our topic and which would also require additional research.
Starting off, let’s compare Chelsea’s expenditure to an other top big European spender. PSG have spent around 150 million to acquire three players. They spent around 200 million to acquire Ligue 1 and reach the quarter finals of the Champions League. That season Chelsea spend around 100 million to win the Europa League and get a top 4 spot.
One must make it clear that the year 2010/11 is not considered by UEFA, and as we all happily remember, in the year 2011/12 , Chelsea won their first Champions League and along with that made profit for the first time under the Russian oligarch by earning over 60 million ONLY in Europe. By adding domestic earnings to that, the amount of money Chelsea earned would go over 80-90 million. This surprised a lot of people, and Chelsea began to ease pressure off their backs.
UEFA released an official document stating the amount of prize money given to each team. Despite crashing out in the group stages, Chelsea earned around €30 million**, half of what they earned in the season they won the tournament. Not bad right?
Around €10 million more was earned when Chelsea won the Europa League, taking the sum total to €40 million. Once again we’re not counting the money Chelsea have received domestically. Couple this with Chelsea’s adventure in the Club World Cup and final appearance in the Super Cup, Chelsea’s total prize money should easily reach around €70-85 million.
Moreover, we can seriously cut back on some transfer fee’s, thanks to the invention of amortization. A gift sent from heaven above. You think Torres cost Chelsea 50 million? As of 2013 he cost us 30 million. Before you go google that, lets rev up the stats once again. Torres signed a 5 year contract for a transfer fee of 50 million. This fee was amortized , meaning equally divided along those 5 years so that it wouldn’t have a big impact on a club’s financial condition. Technically, Chelsea signed Torres for 10 million in 2011. An extra 10 was given in 2012 and another 10 in 2013. By 2015 , it will run up to the actual 50 million. Unless Chelsea sell him of course, then the weight of cost goes on to his next club (I’m not really sure about this last sentence, but if anyone has queries on it, I can clear it ) . Amortize every transfer fee since then, which includes Hazard’s and Oscar’s price tag. They’ll seem a lot lesser.
Moreover, some delightful words from our CEO, Ron Gourlay, assures us that Chelsea is shouldn’t be in any kind of trouble.
“It’s UEFA’s competition so we want to make sure that we comply. All we’ve asked for is that UEFA police and manage the process with a clear, even playing field.”
It would be pretty stupid to say that if we aren’t really planning to comply with the rules. There’s an underlying reason why Chelsea missed out on Falcao and Cavani. It wasn’t really the players saying no to Chelsea, it was all along Chelsea’s fault in not putting ‘enough’ on the table, because for the first time during Roman’s reign , Chelsea have a set limit on how much they can spend. Roman knows that if he wants he could pay enough money to trigger Messi’s transfer clause, compared to that, Cavani and Falcao are nothing. Chelsea have taken the decision to obey the rules and that is the safe path. While clubs like PSG and Monaco have decided to take the dangerous path where they hope that Platini and his compatriots at the UEFA headquarters drop the FFP blue-print on their way to work !
It’s plain and simple though. Win more and you can spend more. With Jose Mourinho planning to start a legacy at the Bridge, that can’t be too hard, right?
**-UEFA’s releases : http://www.uefa.com/uefa/management/finance/news/newsid=1975196.html
