‘They’ve got challenges with UEFA – Chelsea will need to sell this summer’
Chelsea will need to find a balance in their transfer business with the threat of further sanctions from UEFA looming.
That is the view of football finance expert Dan Plumley, who told Football Insider exclusively that the Blues’ “scattergun approach” means there is plenty of business that still needs doing before the transfer window closes.
Enzo Maresca’s side have spent over £240million [transfermarkt] this summer on the likes of Joao Pedro, Liam Delap, and former Ajax wonderkid Jorrel Hato.
Chelsea received an £80m boost from winning the Club World Cup this summer, offsetting a sizeable proportion of their outlays.
At the same time, the Blues have received just over £200m through the sales of players like Noni Madueke to Arsenal and Joao Felix to Al-Nassr.
But after receiving a record-breaking fine from UEFA, the West London side will need to tread carefully with the deals they make between now and September.
‘Chelsea in dialogue with UEFA’
This article contains exclusive comment from Dan Plumley, a football finance expert and senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.
Not only did they receive a fine this summer, but Chelsea also received the threat of further sanctions should they continue to fall foul of UEFA’s financial regulations.
The punishment from the European governing body could be as severe as a ban from European competition.
Speaking to Football Insider exclusively, Plumley explained that further outgoings were likely despite recouping a significant amount of money already.
He said: “I think it’s always likely with Chelsea at the minute.
“This scattergun approach of buying and selling, and it’s got to happen in equal measures, and we’ve seen that already this summer.
“They are buying new players, but then they will go and sell. It’s likely that we still see them continue to do that.
“As we move towards the end of the window, they’ve got challenges with UEFA.
“We know they’ve sorted a settlement and they paid the fine, but there is enough inference in there to suggest that they’re likely to maybe breach again, and they’ve already told UEFA about that.
“They’re already in dialogue with UEFA, which again, we don’t know the outcome of that and we don’t know the exact numbers.
“But it’s absolutely still on the radar, so they have got work to do with UEFA, that’s pretty clear.
“However, they are still buying in the process, and they’ve won the Club World Cup, which has boosted the revenue line.
“But it’s still likely that they’ve got to shift a couple on as well, if nothing else, for the number of players that you don’t want sitting around doing nothing and on your payroll, because you can only register so many in competitions.
“It’s likely we’ll see a few out the door.”
Chelsea ‘on FIFA’s radar’ after Strasbourg transfers
UEFA are not the only governing body keeping a watchful eye on the West London club’s transfer dealings this summer.
Plumley told Football Insider that Chelsea will be “on FIFA’s radar” after selling Mathis Amougou and Ishe Samuels-Smith to Strasbourg.
The Blues have already sent three players on loan to the Ligue 1 side, maxing out their quota they can send to one club.
The two teams are both owned by BlueCo, and in a bid to seemingly subvert those rules, the two youngsters were sold to Strasbourg with Amougou having a buy-back clause in his contract, according to The Sun.