Revealed: Chelsea escape £80m+ transfer payout after big Premier League twist
Chelsea have escaped having to pay out over £80million per year in transfer instalments, Football Insider can reveal.
Premier League clubs voted this week to introduce a five-year cap on amortisation payments.
The new regulation means that clubs can no longer spread the cost of transfer fees across more than five years of a player’s contract.
It was a strategy adopted by Chelsea following Todd Boehly’s takeover in 2022 with multiple players intentionally tied to long contracts in order to spread costs for FFP purposes.
Enzo Fernandes, Moises Caicedo, Mykhailo Mudryk and Nicolas Jackson all signed contracts that span eight years or longer, allowing the London club to pay smaller instalments for their transfer fees.
Caicedo’s British record transfer fee of £115million is spread throughout his eight-year contract, costing Chelsea just over £14million per season in payments to Brighton.
As reported by The Athletic, Chelsea were one of 15 top-flight clubs to vote to introduce the five-year cap despite their exploitation of the previous regulations.
The new limitations will not be backdated, meaning Chelsea’s long-term contracts remain in place with their current transfer instalments.
As per finance expert Kieran Maguire, Chelsea currently pay £59.7million in amortisation costs for the 11 players signed in the 2023/24 summer window.
If the five-year cap was backdated to include Chelsea’s 11 summer signings, the Blues would have had to pay over £80million per season to cover amortisation costs.
That figure doesn’t include players signed to long-term contracts prior to the 2023/24 window.
In other news, Chelsea now plan to sell multiple stars in January