Chelsea Transfers

[TheHulk 2,401]

Romano milking it with the tweets and no update.

The only interesting thing is that Chelsea schelduled meeting why would Benfica care about the meeting if they only want the release clause.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,057]

What a good day for Chelsea rumours yesterday was. Much less newsworthy than all the Enzo talk obviously, but just as important to the team, CFCW have been linked with Arsenal's Katie McCabe.

She's a left-sided player with great physical and technical attributes and the habit for collecting yellow cards. She even managed to pick one up against us a couple of weeks ago despite only playing for  a few minutes. Nominally a midfielder, McCabe can play anywhere down the left. If she joins I expect it would be to become our starting left back. She has apparently asked for permission to speak to Chelsea but with 18 months remaining on her deal I'd say there is zero chance this goes anywhere. Arsenal would have to have lost all of their marbles, bought some more and lost those too, to sell such a valuable player, in mid-season no less, to their biggest rival rival.

[Pizy 18,848]

2 minutes ago, TheHulk said:

Romano milking it with the tweets and no update.

The only interesting thing is that Chelsea schelduled meeting why would Benfica care about the meeting if they only want the release clause.

If we are willing to pay the €120m why would it be up to Rui Costa? Can they refuse to let him leave even if the clause is payed?

[TheHulk 2,401]

1 minute ago, Pizy said:

If we are willing to pay the €120m why would it be up to Rui Costa? Can they refuse to let him leave even if the clause is payed?

We don't want to pay the release clause but the value of it in installments.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,057]

10 minutes ago, Pizy said:

If we are willing to pay the €120m why would it be up to Rui Costa? Can they refuse to let him leave even if the clause is payed?

I think it must be because Chelsea are willing to pay the buyout clause amount, but are not willing to formally trigger the clause given the tax implications. As such, it becomes a "normal" transfer negotiation. This means Benfica could say no, but it also means they can ask for more than €120m, and this is apparently exactly what they are doing.

Edited January 30, 2023 by OhForAGreavsie

[Pizy 18,848]

3 minutes ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

I think it must be because Chelsea are willing to pay the buyout clause amount, but are not willing to formally trigger the clause given the tax implications. As such, it becomes a "normal" transfer negotiation. This means Benfica could say no, but it also means they can ask for more than €120m, and this is apparently exactly what they are doing.

So this could still continue to be an ugly situation if Benfica dig their heels in. 😒

We have to hope face to face negotiations tomorrow can soften their stance.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,057]

1 hour ago, Pizy said:

So this could still continue to be an ugly situation if Benfica dig their heels in. 😒

We have to hope face to face negotiations tomorrow can soften their stance.

On the face of it, the fact that there are negotiations, is already a softening from their public position. We have to remember that one of the principal, if not the principal, audience for Rui Costa public statements is Benfica fans. What he says publicly, or perhaps the way he says it, might not be the whole truth about his position.

Ultimately Benfica know how much it would cost Chelsea, including add-ons, to trigger the buyout clause. If Chelsea say they are willing to do that, then it makes sense for Benfica to come to the table and try to negotiate some of that extra money for themselves as part of an ordinary transfer, rather than watch that extra cash disappear in taxes which serves neither Club's purposes. This is guesswork of course, but it sounds reasonable to me and fits with the report the we are offering a figure above the buyout clause.

Edited January 30, 2023 by OhForAGreavsie

[Strike 7,474]

4 hours ago, Pizy said:

So this could still continue to be an ugly situation if Benfica dig their heels in. 😒

We have to hope face to face negotiations tomorrow can soften their stance.

Benfica have to consider a bid of this size - despite their public position. There is a good chance no one comes in with a 100m bid for Enzo in the summer or ever again.

Todd and Eghbali seem like they want to bring in new signings before the amortisation rules change - tie Enzo down to a 7.5 + 1 year like Mudryk

[bigbluewillie 1,930]

Well! the Telegraph is reporting this, via BBC Sport

Chelsea have reopened talks with Benfica about trying to sign Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernández, 22, before the transfer window closes on Tuesday. (Telegraph - subscription required)

 

 

[Reddish-Blue 2,489]

1 hour ago, Strike said:

Benfica have to consider a bid of this size - despite their public position. There is a good chance no one comes in with a 100m bid for Enzo in the summer or ever again.

Todd and Eghbali seem like they want to bring in new signings before the amortisation rules change - tie Enzo down to a 7.5 + 1 year like Mudryk

I would have thought Enzo would be next choice in the list for whichever club misses out on Bellingham. 

Enzo will get to pick which club he goes to....if we wait till the summer and our negotiating position would be much worse without the attraction of UCL football next season. 

[Jype 6,398]

7 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

@Jype since you have great knowledge about FFP and how money is amortized, I remember you putting exact numbers for these long contracts and how great for FFP is to sell academy products, can you explain where we would be post summer if next happens:

With Enzo our spending will be around 600m euros just this season. Lets say we buy Felix for 80m in the summer and GK for 20m. So 700m 😂

We got 55,60m last summer and possibly we sell plenty more in the summer like KK, Azpi, Ziyech, Auba, Lukaku... Wont bother how much can we get for them but my main question is since academy players are pure profit what would mean to us if this summer we get for example 20m instalment from Roma for Abraham, 20-30 for Chalobah, RLC 15-20, Ampadu 10-15m, Cho 20-25, Gallagher or Mount 35-50m. So most likely way over 100m pounds maybe even 150m just for our academy boys and with new players signing 7,8,9 years long contracts how would that reflect on the books?

Right now the players we've signed so far amount roughly for a total of £73M a year in amortisation. If we pull off the Enzo signing this window and assume a 7,5 year deal that's another £14M a year in amortisation and in the summer Nkunku should add around £12M to that.

Felix loan is not included in the total figure above but if it were made permanent and we'd sign him for say £80M that means an additional £16M a year amortisation costs which would be higher than Enzo's as the new UEFA rules prevent amortisation longer than five years starting from next summer. You wanted to include a £20M goalkeeper so assuming a five year deal that's £4M amortisation. 

All these added up would mean close to £120M a year in new amortisation costs compared to pre-takeover times, though last summer's departures (most notably Werner, Rüdiger, Alonso, Drinkwater, Barkley, Emerson and the Saul loan) will already have reduced the total increase by a good chunk (£30-35M rough estimate). For Werner and Barkley the club still had to take an FFP hit for this season as these players had some amortisation left that Werner's 20M€ transfer fee and Barkley's free transfer didn't clear but going into next season those should all be totally gone from the books. 

Getting rid off Jorginho, Ziyech, Pulisic, Auba for fees that minimum cover the players remaining amortisation costs (£30M for the last three) would clear around £32M in yearly amortisation, and fees higher than that would be 'profit' in the eyes of the FFP budget. Binning Lukaku and Koulibaly on a permanent deals is probably not going to happen.

Getting an installment paid for Abraham won't affect any FFP calculations, as the money has already been banked in the 21/22 accounts no matter when the actual payment is made.

But yeah, HG player sales are going to be key. At the very least Gallagher, CHO and RLC are all players who should attract plenty of interest and like you said the fees for these players would be 'pure profit' with no previous amortisation costs involved. £60-65M for this lot in the summer and combined with the potential Ziyech, Pulisic etc. sales would already take us close to break-even for the season as far as amortisation costs go, though I have to note that it's only for one year and we'd either have to repeat the same trick with player sales every year or increase revenues by a lot to stay in the good graces of the FFP.

Now with most new players signed on very long term deals that minimize amortisation (and therefore increase remaining book value) repeating the sales every year is probably not going to be possible because the fees we would need to get to 'profit' in FFP terms would probably be too big for what is realistically achievable and selling off academy products for tens of millions every year is probably not too realistic either because from what I understand the 'golden generation' of Cobham has kind of already passed and right now there probably isn't as much good talent coming through as there was in around 2016-2020. Increasing the revenues would be the safest bet if Boehly and Clearlake can pull that off, and having a successful team on the pitch would probably go a long way into doing that and is probably one of the main reasons they've been willing to spend so big.

[TheHulk 2,401]