(Credit: Imago)

James Murray

Wed 15 April 2026 12:30, UK

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Chelsea’s profits on player sales are being “eroded” due to the high transactional costs they are paying on transfers. 

That is according to former Manchester City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider the Blues are going to face a “constant problem” due to the transfer model they are employing.

The Athletic reported on Monday (13 April) Chelsea’s gross transfer spending has reached more than £1.8billion since BlueCo took over the club in May 2022. 

The London giants have spent around £295million on new additions this season, while £290m of talent has left Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea’s heavy spending hasn’t improved results on the field, with Liam Rosenior’s side currently sitting sixth in the Premier League table. 

Why Chelsea have spent £65m on agent fees this season

It has been revealed Chelsea have topped the list for spending on agents this season, with their figure reaching £65.1m. 

Meanwhile, Aston Villa also spent heavily on agent fees after ranking second in the Premier League, but their total was significantly lower than the Blues at £38.4m for the campaign. 

Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson discussed why Chelsea’s spending on agents was much higher than their Premier League rivals.

“You do have to remember that they’re just very big traders,” said Borson.

“Last summer they did around £600m of ins and outs. If you do £600m of business, the agent fees and the percentage that they spend is not out of kilter with the rest of the league, so it’s not a lot.

“Football has very high agent costs. That’s just the nature of the beast. There’s not a lot you can do about it. It is what it is. If you’re trading £600m of players, you’re going to have approximately £65m of agent fees and that’s what they have, so I don’t think there’s much of a surprise.” 

Why Chelsea face ‘constant problem’ with transfer model

Borson suggested the agent fees say more about the challenges Chelsea are facing employing their transfer strategy.  

“For me, it’s more of a reminder that the model that they’re trying to employ, which is ‘We’ll try and trade our way to success’, is a very difficult idea, just because you’ve got a constant problem of the friction or cost of trading players,” said Borson. 

“It’s expensive for all of the add-ons that you have to pay each time you buy and sell a player. It just means that your profit is being eroded at both ends.

“You’ve got very high transactional costs when you buy the player and you’ve got very high transactional costs when you sell the player, which just means that even when you’ve got a successful signing that you then flipped, that your profit has just been squeezed.”