Numbers Breakown
Chaotic mess or the next Man City? Making sense of Chelsea’s €1.93b transfer gamble
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Chelsea’s summer spending spree hit new heights this week with the signing of Aston Villa attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers. The England international made the move to Stamford Bridge for an eye-watering fee of €138 million, making the 23-year-old attacking talent the club’s most expensive signing ever and the most expensive midfielder ever signed by a Premier League club.
That transfer fee, which is most unlikely to be the last paid by Chelsea this summer, takes the London club’s spending in the current transfer window to just less than €257m. That, unsurprisingly, makes the Premier League club one of the biggest spenders in the summer period, with only Tottenham Hotspur (€267m spent on transfer fees) above them. However, the arrival of Rogers is just the latest transfer in a series of somewhat unprecedented moves by Chelsea in the transfer window.
Indeed, since the club was taken over by BlueCo – which is primarily owned by Clearlake and headed by Todd Boehly – Chelsea have spent a truly astronomical €1.93 billion on new players. Unlike this current transfer window, no other club comes close to rivalling Chelsea in that regard, with Tottenham coming closest on €1.17b spent on new players, followed by Manchester City (€1.13b) and then Manchester United (€1.05b). Paris Saint-Germain, the reigning European champions for the past two seasons, have spent less than half that amount on new signings. So what is behind Chelsea’s spending spree and can we make any sense of it?
Chelsea’s underappreciated resale business
While Chelsea have undoubtedly spent more money than any other club, they’ve also raked in a remarkable sum of money from selling players too. The club were famed for somewhat balancing their books with the sale of academy players under the previous administration, and while the Stamford Bridge club aren’t exactly developing young prospects at the same rate as previous years, they do still find ways to make money in the transfer window every season.
For example, while the club only made €68m from player sales in their first season under the current ownership, that figure then ballooned to €282m, then €237m and then a remarkable €339m in the next three seasons, as Chelsea bid farewell to big stars like Kai Havertz, Mason Mount, Ian Maatsen, Conor Gallagher and Noni Madueke. This summer alone, the Stamford Bridge club have earned €132m from the sale of Andrey Santos, Marc Cucurella and Tyrique George, with many more players likely to be sold before the end of the summer window.
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As such, for all of the tenacity Chelsea show in spending money, they’ve also become one of the best in the world of football at selling players too. This season’s income from player sales is the fourth best in all of European football, and under the BlueCo ownership the club have earned a total of €1.06b from player sales – which is around €332m more than the next best sellers in the transfer market in that period of time. As such, while Chelsea are the biggest spenders in the world under their current ownership, their net spend on transfer fees since 2022 is actually just €80m more than Tottenham and €162m more than Man Utd over the course of five seasons.
Are Chelsea the new Man City?
It’s with that in mind that it’s perhaps worth reconsidering what Chelsea’s short and long-term goals are in the Premier League under the BlueCo ownership. An interesting comparison can be found in Man City, who underwent a similar rebuild when the club was bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group in late 2008. Like Chelsea’s behaviour in their first five seasons under BlueCo, Man City spent an unprecedented amount of money under their new owners, spending €640m on new players between 2008 and 2013.
As we can see in the graphic above, Man City’s spending was on a different scale to what we’re now seeing from Chelsea, but it followed a very similar pattern. In fact, one could argue that Man City’s spending was even more aggressive, due to them relying on paltry sums of transfer income at the time. As such, Man City’s net spend between 2008 and 2013 was a massive 47% higher than second-placed Real Madrid (net spend of €317m), while Chelsea’s net spend under BlueCo is only 10% higher than the next-highest net-spenders (Tottenham: €795m).
It’s perhaps also worth bearing in mind that Man City’s spending went up a level when Pep Guardiola arrived in 2016, with the Etihad club spending €956m on new players and earning €319m in player sales between 2016 and 2021, giving them a higher net spend of €636m in those five years. Curiously, that puts Man City’s net spend per season at €127m, which is only marginally lower than Chelsea’s current average net spend of €175m per season.
Pep Guardiola
Biggest Signings
However, the financial landscape in which Man City first rose to prominence in English football was very different to how it is now. While it remains to be seen how many financial rules Man City allegedly broke between 2018 and 2023 – a verdict is expected from an independent commission in the near future – there’s little doubt that the club never had to navigate through the current financial fair play rules that are imposed on Chelsea by both the Premier League and UEFA.
Chelsea have worked around the rules by awarding their key players ludicrously long contracts – to offset the up-front transfer fees over longer periods of times on the club’s accounts – and by selling their women's team and two hotels next to Stamford Bridge to their parent company, BlueCo, but as we’ve seen, the London club have also had to be far more proactive in selling players for huge sums of money. As such, Chelsea haven’t been able to simply spend their way to success like Man City initially did under their rich owners.
The other thing that Chelsea haven’t managed to copy from Man City is appointing a manager with the talent and success of Pep Guardiola. Since 2022, BlueCo have burned through five managers, with Xabi Alonso appointed earlier this month with the clear task of turning that trend around. It took Man City four seasons to couple pending with success and their first Premier League title. Chelsea are now five years into their current project and remain some way off the pace. Perhaps Alonso can change that this season and guide Chelsea towards a league title. But until then, the club’s transfer activity will continue to raise eyebrows, as well as complaints from rival fans.
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