Vesper

Quadruple player sale won’t fix Chelsea’s new FFP problem as Clearlake stare down UEFA punishment https://www.thechelseachronicle.com/news/quadruple-player-sale-wont-fix-chelseas-new-ffp-problem-as-clearlake-stare-down-uefa-punishment/ Chelsea are in the process of completing a number of big player sales, however there are still fears that they may not meet the criteria recently laid out to them by UEFA. As they continue to spend big money on new signings, these are being funded with the sales of some individuals who were firmly on the fringes of starting for Enzo Maresca. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has officially moved to Everton after just one season with the club, while Armando Broja, Lesley Ugochukwu and Carney Chukwuemeka all look set for moves. It has been said that Chelsea are desperate for sales to stay onside with UEFA after they were punished for breaking financial rules. The Blues need to sell players in order to be able to register new signings such as Joao Pedro, Liam Delap and Jamie Gittens for the upcoming Champions League. Chelsea will still have FFP problems after quadruple player sale Financial expert Adam Williams has exclusively told The Chelsea Chronicle that while the Blues are in clear waters when it comes to the Premier League, they still have work to do as far as UEFA goes after these four players leave Stamford Bridge. He said: “Chelsea are in an unusual position with PSR. The first thing to note is that the Premier League has one set of financial rules, while UEFA has another. “Under the Premier League system, Chelsea aren’t allowed to lose any more than £105m over a rolling three-year period, with allowable add-backs for things like investment in the academy, infrastructure and the women’s team. On paper, Chelsea are miles over the limit, but – as everyone knows by now – because they have executed these PSR sleights of hand with the women’s team and hotel sales, they aren’t in any trouble with the Premier League rules. “UEFA’s rules are more complex, and they don’t count the hotel and women’s team sales, so Chelsea are in a much more precarious position. As we know, the club has already breached UEFA FFP. Incidentally, it hasn’t been called ‘FFP’ for some time now, but we’ll use that as shorthand for UEFA’s rules. Chelsea broke both the allowable loss limit provision of the rules, which is lower than the Premier League’s limit at about £70-75m over three years, and the squad cost ratio rule, which limits spending on wages, transfers and agents fees to 70 per cent of turnover plus profit on player sales. They’ve been fined and they now have to adhere to a number of conditions as part of a settlement with UEFA over the next few years. “In terms of the immediate impact that’s going to have, Chelsea need to have a ‘positive transfer balance’ in terms of the squad they register for the Champions League this coming season compared to the one they registered in Europe in 2024-25. That’s not actually as hard as it sounds. Why? Because it’s only the amortised cost of the players they have signed this season that they need to offset, not the full headline transfer fees. That’s about £50-60m, not the £250m or so they have spent. “Madueke will have made up a big chunk of that, but you also have to remember that the profit on player sales is calcualted on the player’s amortised book value, not the headline figures. So the profit on his sale to Arsenal will have been around £30m. Similarly, they will only have broken even on the Dewsbury-Hall sale, not made any meaningful profit. “If Chukwemeka goes for £22m, as we understand is imminent, that will be an FFP profit of around £12m. For Ugochukwu, it will be about £6m. If they get £20m for Broja, that will be pure profit. But then again, none of those players were in Chelsea’s UEFA squad last year, so they will help the club with the allowable loss limit element of the UEFA’s rules, but not the provision that means they have to have a positive transfer balance. Chelsea will get there, and it has always been the plan to use players as trading chips anyway, but it means they still have work to do.“ Todd Boehly tipped to completely change Chelsea model Chelsea have been free-spending in the three years since Todd Boehly took over the club, easily paying more for players than any other club in that time period. However, Williams believes the losses they are making every season is going to need to drastically change, and the recent settlement with UEFA will be the start of a new era. “The bigger concern is the financial targets they need to hit over the next few years as part of the UEFA settlement. That is going to fundamentally change how the club is run, I predict. They need to dramatically slash their costs or massively increase revenue, or a combination of both. “They are losing £200m per season at the operating level, so there is big, big work to be done to get into a position where they hit UEFA’s targets. And remember, they can’t use the same accountancy tricks as they have with the Premier League rules. By 2028-29, they need to be fully compliant with the £75m allowable loss limit. The squad cost ratio rule seems to carry less of a stringent punishment, but if they continually fall foul of that too, there will be reprisals. “There are so many moving parts with Chelsea, but it’s the UEFA rules that they need to be concerned about. I think the day that they agreed the settlement with UEFA was Day One of a new era for the ownership. We’ll see how that manifests itself over the next few years.“ One of the biggest ways Chelsea could increase their revenue would be a move away from Stamford Bridge, with the capacity of the stadium minnowing some of their elite rivals. Boehly is keen on a new stadium, however it is expected to be a number of years before this becomes a possibility for the Blues.

no

Missed wages, closed stand, quitting players: Why Sheffield Wednesday could go bust https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/45898609/why-sheffield-wednesday-danger-going-existence In April 1991, John Sheridan scored the winner for Sheffield Wednesday against Manchester United in the League Cup final, and that 1-0 victory was an even bigger shock than you might think: to this day it's the last time a club playing outside the top division of English football won a major trophy. Wednesday, who finished third in the second tier to gain promotion, beat a United side who finished sixth in the old First Division. And while the club have enjoyed some remarkable stories in recent years -- including pulling off the greatest comeback in EFL playoff history, and avoiding relegation from a seemingly impossible position two seasons ago -- it's that day at Wembley that remains etched in history. Today, with the club in desperate financial trouble, such heights seem further away than ever. Such is the dire situation at Hillsborough that there's no certainty they will take to the field for their season opener against Leicester City on Sunday. And if they do, a supporters' protest is planned against controversial owner Dejphon Chansiri. So, why are Wednesday in trouble, how bad is it, and why does it matter? Why is Sheffield Wednesday's plight such a big story? With Wednesday formed in 1867, only four league clubs -- Notts County, Stoke City, Wrexham and Nottingham Forest -- have been around for longer. Wednesday, nicknamed the Owls, have been out of the Premier League for 25 years, so it would be no surprise if their name doesn't resonate globally -- other than for the odd quirk of being named after the day the founding cricket club used to play its games. Yet they were one of the biggest clubs in the early 1900s, and only 12 teams have won more than their 10 major trophies in the history of English football. It's just that the 1991 League Cup is the only silverware they've won since 1935. Even though the club have been outside of the top flight for all but a few months of this century, they still rank 15th for total points earned and played in the opening eight seasons of the Premier League. While many other clubs have come close to going out of business, or actually gone bust, Wednesday are by far the biggest to get to this stage. They were near to administration in 2010 too, but the club was sold to Milan Mandaric for just £1. That kind of deal isn't remotely on the table this time. Who is Dejphon Chansiri? Chansiri is the Thai businessman who is the owner of Sheffield Wednesday, yet next to nothing is known about how he funds the club or his background. He is part of the family that owns Thai Union Group, the world's largest producer of tuna and seafood, yet he has no role on the board of the company. TUG branding was present for a brief period when Chansiri bought the club from Mandaric in 2015, but it quickly disappeared. Wednesday enjoyed two years of success at the start of Chansiri's reign, coming close to a Premier League return when they lost in the 2016 playoff final to Hull City. But those years also saw huge overspending, and a failure to transfer players on for a profit, which would eventually come back to bite Chansiri hard. Chansiri's autocratic style of ownership means he takes every decision -- there is no director of football, no chief executive, no one in the U.K. who takes ultimate responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club, which has added to the perception of a rudderless ship. Dejphon Chansiri bought Sheffield Wednesday from Milan Mandaric in 2015. Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images So what is the problem at Sheffield Wednesday? How long have you got? There's a book to be written, and a long one at that, about what has gone on behind the scenes at Hillsborough. The first sign of real issues came in July 2020 when the club were deducted 12 points for breaching profit and sustainability rules (PSR). The written reasons showed that Chansiri had failed to sign a vital document on time to sanction the sale of Hillsborough, the club's ground, to another company in his name, and that caused the PSR breach. The deduction was reduced to six points on appeal, but Wednesday were relegated to League One on goal difference. Since then have been a few times when the club have been late making key payments, but this year it has come to a head and the club's very existence is now under threat. And this isn't even the complete list: - Chansiri has failed to pay players and staff (including those who work in departments like the club shop and the ticket office) on time and in full in March, May, June and July. - In June, the EFL placed a triple transfer embargo on the club for a failure to pay the players. After this, further embargoes followed after Chansiri was late paying the tax bill, and there remain outstanding transfer fees to other clubs. - The multiple late wages meant that under FIFA rules key players were able to serve notice to rip up their contracts and leave on a free transfer. Josh Windass, who scored 13 goals in the Championship last season (only four players scored more), walked away to join Wrexham, while Michael Smith, scorer of eight goals, quit for Preston North End. - Wednesday had to transfer other key players to pay the outstanding bills. This included 21-year-old winger Djeidi Gassama to Rangers for a reported £2.2 million -- way below his true transfer value. Gassama scored in his first two appearances for Rangers -- both legs of the Champions League qualifier against Panathinaikos. - Highly rated coach Danny Röhl, who was in dispute with Chansiri throughout 2025, left by "mutual consent" on July 29. The German wanted to move to a new club, but Chansiri reportedly wouldn't negotiate on the compensation clause in his contract. Most of Röhl's staff left at the same time -- other than assistant Henrik Pedersen, who was named the new coach. - The club's North Stand, which holds 9,000 supporters (many of them season-ticket holders who have paid for a seat for every league game) and carries Chansiri's name, has been closed by the local council. Chansiri had failed to carry out crucial safety work on the roof of the stand, meaning it has been deemed unsafe and cannot be used. - Wednesday have 16 senior players remaining (only one goalkeeper, with a defender long-term injured). Of the 16, some have reportedly followed the lead of Smith and Windass and served notice to leave after failing to be paid for July. - Wednesday have no senior coaching staff and have played no preseason friendlies ahead of Sunday's Championship opener at Leicester. Sheffield Wednesday's North Stand, adorned with Chansiri's name, has been closed after urgent repairs were not carried out. Scott Llewellyn | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images What is the EFL doing about it? When Chansiri took charge, there was nothing to suggest the club would be where it is 10 years on; the EFL doesn't have a crystal ball to predict the future when it approves a takeover. But at the same time, Wednesday fans feel like they have been abandoned by the league as the situation grows ever more serious. The league has made only one statement, on June 18, when it issued charges against the club and Chansiri for the late payments. Since then, while there has been a meeting with the club's supporters' group there has been no official comment to suggest action is being taken. The EFL has no ability to take control of the club or force Chansiri to sell it, but it can put pressure on to expedite a sale -- often by threatening expulsion from the league. It's the route that finally saw Chinese businessman Dai Yongge sell Reading in May. However, the EFL has no power to make Chansiri sell, and he could just allow the club to fold. This will change when the new independent regulator for English football begins to operate, but that could be too late for Wednesday. But could Wednesday really go out of existence? This is the big question, and a lot will depend on Chansiri's ability to fund the club for the whole season. That he hasn't managed to pay players or staff for three consecutive months points either to serious cashflow issues, or that he has simply removed his funding. The latter would be more concerning, as it would suggest he has no need to sell the club below his reported personal valuation of £100 million -- a figure he has no realistic chance of achieving. The EFL knows how bad it will look if a club the size of Wednesday go under, so it seems unlikely drastic action will be taken which would see them fail to start the season -- as was the case with Bury (who eventually went out of business) in 2019. The situation is perhaps more comparable with another former Premier League club, Bolton Wanderers. Also in 2019, Bolton were allowed to start the campaign and played their opening fixtures with a squad largely made up of young players until a sale of the club went through a few weeks later. At least in Bolton's case there appeared to be the prospect of a takeover. Another the key issue is that Chansiri has separated the ground from the club in that botched attempt to avoid PSR charges, and it seems unlikely a deal will be possible unless both are included. Could the players go on strike? After the July wages failed to arrive last Thursday, Wednesday's players refused to play a behind-closed-doors friendly with Premier League club Burnley at the weekend. Captain Barry Bannan, who signed a new contract last week despite the turmoil, says he expects the troubled club to fulfil their opening Championship fixture away to Leicester. However, the players issued a joint statement on Monday that said they "stand together in support with all our colleagues" and that action must be taken so that "decisions taken like the one not to play at Burnley are avoided in the future." Striking for a competitive fixture would be a last resort, but it clearly cannot be ruled out. What has been the fans' response? Understandably, there is despair that every day appears to bring more bad news. Supporters have been protesting against Chansiri's ownership for several months, but it will now be ramped up as the club lurches close to disaster. A protest is planned for the Leicester game, which is live on television around the world, when fans won't take their seats until the fifth minute -- leaving an empty away end with an anti-Chansiri banner. Further protests are planned at home fixtures, when one the biggest stands will remain empty -- and facing the television cameras -- until Chansiri funds repairs. Fans have also removed their funding of club merchandise to starve Chansiri of that revenue stream. Sheffield Wednesday fans protest during a game against Leeds United last season. George Wood/Getty Images What happens next at Wednesday? With Chansiri in Thailand, and failing to engage with players, staff or supporters, there will be an air of inertia until the situation is resolved. The only way out of this appears to be the sale of the club, but that doesn't seem to be close and will require Chansiri lowering his demands. With a threadbare squad which has had its attacking quality stripped away, only 11 players over the age of 21 and the possibility of a points deduction for the charges laid in June, there is no hope of staying in the Championship. Regardless of supporter protests, and EFL sanctions, the club's future lies in the hands of one man: Chansiri. If a takeover does happen, the new owners will have to deal with the embargo, which means Wednesday can't sign players for a transfer fee until 2027. Whatever happens, reaching the Premier League again seems light-years away.

we are world champions that should be a perk

this size looks better

Newcastle quoted £55m for Champions League striker as club wait on Sesko bid https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2025/08/05/psg-open-to-selling-striker-for-just-55m-as-newcastle-show-interest-report/

yes and it is too large

my right-footed wants at CB are mostly, of not all, that (we do not need a lefty CB atm, but IF we did, there are only 2 I want, Bastoni or Murillo) Dean Huijsen (ambipedal and it fucking killed me when we got Real'ed) Bremer (IF fully recovered) Ousmane Diomande Ilya Zabarnyi (IF PSG do not get him) Giorgio Scalvini (IF fully recovered) Ronald Araujo Marquinhos (crazy hard pull) Tomás Araújo Antonio Silva Mario Gila Joel Ordóñez Mohamed Simakan

quid works as I was talking about an English club splashing the cash Barca are fucked financially, Bayern have Kane, Real apperently are all good with Mbappe as a CF PSG maybe would look at him, but doubt they do it now

fuck that twat and fuck the board for buying him and paying him INSANE wages grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I had an absolute fit when we bought him and paid him that much in salary just settle and sell the bastard he is fucking both poison and rinsed that's a horror combo

sell Disasi, Fofana, and one of Badi/Veiga keep Trevoh and Tosin

it isnt Garnacho Rogers would replace in terms of recruitment it is Simons (right footed AMF who can also play LW)

disagree all of these would be (or will be) bang-on weapons in the EPL: Julian Alvarez (AM would have sold him IF a club dumped enough quid and he already was EPL proven) Lautaro Martinez (see Julian, minus the EPL previoud experience) Viktor Gyökeres Victor Osimhen Omar Marmoush (already has showed his quality, I listed him as he was on the market earlier this year) Jonathan David (the most underrated top 20 CF IMHO)

yes, we perhaps lost a monster player when Pool poached him away from us I was raging for weeks

those 2 are going to be the hardest to sell I fear and they are on INSANE salaries £550K to £575K PW combined

sounds like Trump's cognitive test (which he claimed he got the greatest score ever seen by his doctors🤪) LOLOLOL

the only ones I can think of are Maatsen van Ginkel (horrid luck with injuries) Aké van Aanholt The Cannibal aka Boulahrouz Winston Bogarde and then the Big Three Robben Hasselbaink (after Drogba he is my 2nd fav Chels CF) Ruuuuuud Gullit the legend and finally the super obscure (for a very recent player, but one who I had huge hopes for (when he came from Barca) until he destroyed his knee) Xavier Mbuyamba aka The X Man

Nominative determinism in football Arsenal Wenger, James Trafford and the players and managers destined for clubs… because of their names https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6524643/2025/08/04/football-names-clubs-managers-arsenal-wenger/ Nominative determinism, i.e. the theory that people gravitate towards jobs or activities that reflect their name, is a thing. Researchers once found that people called Dennis or Denise were more likely to gravitate towards dentistry (this is genuine). It’s not a universal truth. Someone called Louise Baker isn’t necessarily destined to wear chef whites for a living. Likewise, Tony Dull doesn’t have to become an accountant. But when Wolves signed David Moller Wolfe last week and James Trafford decided to join Manchester City, they became the latest quirks in football’s history of throwing up ironically placed players. Trafford will not only return to the city that houses the shopping mall the Trafford Centre or the Trafford Park area, but also, of course, Old Trafford, i.e. the home of City’s greatest rivals. It’s a bit like someone called James Park being in goal for Sunderland. He becomes the second goalkeeper in Manchester whose surname shares the name with a park in the city. Heaton Park, which recently hosted about 300,000 people across five glorious Oasis homecoming gigs, was named after Manchester United goalkeeper Tom Heaton in honour of his contribution to the club since he signed in 2021 (three appearances and counting). This is not true; the Heaton Hall estate dates back centuries, but hopefully you believed that for a second. Tom Heaton, not the inspiration for Heaton Park (Octavio Passos/Getty Images) Of course, Manchester United do have a young player named after them — Kobbie Mainoo. Or at least, to those fans who use Man U as a pejorative when referring to the club. The most shocking example of a rival’s home in a player’s surname, though, has to be the man we know as Barcelona legend Gerard Pique, or to give him his full name, Gerard Pique Bernabeu. The Bernabeu, of course, is the name of rivals Real Madrid’s home ground. However, the Bernabeu name is certainly no source of shame for Pique; his grandfather Amador Bernabeu was formerly a vice-president at Barcelona. Still, it’s pretty ironic that one of Real Madrid’s ultimate hate figures shares a name with the club’s home. Sometimes you see the name of a club and think it must be fate. That was certainly Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein’s take when, in 1989, he met some chap called Arsene Wenger for the first time. Wenger, then Monaco manager, attended an Arsenal match at their old Highbury ground, and Dein took him to a friend’s house for dinner. “I thought, ‘This guy’s something special, he’s a bit different’,” Dein later recalled to the BBC. “Just then it was like a flash of lightning, I sort of saw in the sky: ‘Arsene for Arsenal: it’s destiny; one day he will be our manager’.” Three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups later, Dein’s destiny worked out alright. Good job that he wasn’t called Dave Wenger. Perhaps the most blatant case of managerial nominative determinism is Wolfgang Wolf managing Wolfsburg. It was only his second career job (after Stuttgarter Kickers), and he lifted Wolfsburg to what was then the club’s highest-ever finish of sixth in 1999, lasting five years before he was kicked out of the pack. You might think Molineux was the next logical destination for Wolf, which sadly never happened. Wolves had already signed a namesake in 1994, though, in the form of Dutch defender John de Wolf. This wasn’t due to a flash of lightning that then Wolves manager Graham Taylor saw in the sky; Taylor had been impressed by De Wolf when seeing him play for the Netherlands against England. “I wrote a book in 1994 and said hopefully one day I’d play in England… the book came out in December and that was the month I joined Wolves,” De Wolf later told The Athletic. “Also, the name of the club — my name! It just fitted.” De Wolf was an instant cult hero. “De Wolf man” was a regular chant at Molineux when the burly defender with a lengthy golden mane would saunter up the field to take long throws. He’s now been followed up by Wolves signing AZ Alkmaar’s Norwegian left-back David Moller Wolfe for €11.5m (£10m). Wolfe told Wolves.co.uk: “Personally, I think it’s pretty cool to have that surname and then to play for Wolverhampton. “Me and my brothers have actually joked a little bit about it a couple of years ago, and now it is turning into a reality. I think it was meant to be.” There was only one club that recently retired midfield Salva Sevilla was supposed to play for, but sadly he only ever made the B team for the Spanish club. Surprisingly, he would go on to make his name at Sevilla’s big rivals Real Betis. Ditto former Tottenham Hotspur defender Mike England, who managed Wales for eight years in the 1980s. Mat Sadler, though, did get it right when he played for Walsall, i.e. the Saddlers, not once but twice during his playing days, and is now the club’s manager. Mat Sadler, the manager of the Saddlers (Morgan Harlow/Getty Images) Graham Potter served ‘the Potters’ with distinction during his playing days when he featured for Stoke City for three years. Christian Fuchs joined the right English club when he moved to Leicester City in 2015; Fuchs in German means fox. It’s not just club names that elicit destiny for players; positions do too. What other position on the field would former Belgian player Mark De Man play other than defence? It just had to be true. In fact, De Man played all across the back line, as a full-back or a centre-back and was even known to pop into defensive midfield, playing for Anderlecht in Belgium and with Roda JC in the Dutch Eredivisie, all the while shadowing his opponents extremely closely. Opposition players knew exactly who was arriving when their team-mates shouted; “De Man on!” In a less obvious but still fitting outcome, one-time Premier League player John Utaka simply had to play as an attacker, which he did pretty successfully for Portsmouth in the late 2000s, providing the cross that led to Portsmouth’s winning goal in the 2008 FA Cup final. Some names are curious given their styles of play, like beanpole 6ft 7in striker Peter Crouch, or legendary Italian defender Claudio Gentile, a player famed for being an aggressive nutcase rather than a serene ball-player. Names don’t always forge a path of fate in football; Gareth Barry never played for Barry Town, while Isaac Success only played for Watford in England. But when it happens, it’s pretty satisfying.

sounds like a stalker