Chelsea makes unprecedented spending and raises football market prices

*With New York Times

Until last Tuesday, when the transfer windows for the main European leagues closed, only one midfielder had overcome the barrier of 100 million euros in a single transaction: the Frenchman Paul Pogba, who went from Juventus to Manchester United for 105 millions of euros. That brand was sprayed by Chelsea, in an amazing investment that exceeded 329 million euros (R$ 1.83 billion) and ended with the arrival of Enzo Fernández, from Benfica, for 121 million (R$ 672 million).

The 22-year-old midfielder had only been in European football for six months, but he sparked a frenzy in the market when he was voted best young player at the Qatar Cup. Until that Tuesday, everyone knew that it would be difficult to get him out of the Portuguese club – which paid 44 million euros in July – but even so, it was hardly feasible to think that he would leave for the sixth highest value in history, the highest in the Premier League.

This is another (and perhaps the biggest) example of how the new owners of the Blues, the American Todd Boehly and the Iranian Behdad Eghbali, have operated in the transfer market. A few weeks after closing the purchase of the London club (last May), the businessmen plunged headlong into the frantic world of negotiations. Right away, they invested 281 million euros, spent on young names like Fofana and Cucurella, plus the experienced Koulibaly, Sterling and Aubameyang. In September, they sacked Thomas Tuchel and brought in coach Graham Potter, who stood out for Brighton.

While the team lives an unstable season, far from the Champions zone and eliminated from the domestic cups, a football structure was being set up behind the scenes, under the expectation that the owners would stay longer in the USA. But what was seen was just the opposite: Boehly and Eghbali centralized their roles in the negotiations even more.

If not all reinforcements gave the expected return, entrepreneurs try to “correct” with even more dollar signs. In addition to Enzo, Andrey Santos (ex-Vasco), João Félix, Badiashile and Mudryk, all young names, arrived, among others.

Mudryk, Ukrainian sensation, signed in film deal. Eghbali landed by surprise on a jet at the same resort as Sergei Palkin, president of Shakhatar Donetsk, in Turkey. There, he intercepted an already advanced negotiation with Arsenal.

To sustain spending, the Blues skilfully use amortization, which in the accounting world allows them to pay, in a financial balance sheet, the total amounts of transfers divided over the years of the athletes’ contract into “installments”, favoring the annual expense account and avoiding problems with financial fair play.

It is a strategy that involves monetary and sporting risks. The main one is in the asset management of the cast. If in football it is common to conclude contracts of two to four years duration, Boehly and Eghbali’s Chelsea make agreements of five to eight years — cases of Enzo and Mudryk, who signed until June 2031. Smaller “parcels”, but one multiplied risk in having high-paying players with no guarantee of success or resale value for nearly a decade.

On the business front, boasting such financial power will certainly raise requests from selling clubs, not just to Chelsea, but to the entire wealthy Premier League. Financial watchdogs and other leagues are keeping an eye on the maneuvers and funding of billionaires at English clubs.

“It is really dangerous that this market is doped up, inflated, as has been the case in recent years in Europe, because that could put the sustainability of European football at risk,” said Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, in statements reproduced by the AP.

The numbers show that there is indeed a disparity: Premier League clubs alone invested 870 million euros in this window, almost triple the leagues in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Portugal combined.