Premier League clubs vote against Chelsea’s habit of handing contracts for over 7/8 years
As per Sky Sports, Premier League clubs will not be allowed to give more than five-year contracts to players after Chelsea’s recent strategy under Todd Boehly to hand 7/8-year deals.
In June, it was first UEFA that closed the loophole found by Chelsea owners Boehly to spread the players’ fees over long-term contracts, and now the English top flight has taken the same action.
The Blues signed a plethora of players under new owners with lengthy deals in the summer of 2022 and in January of this year, including handing eight-and-a-half-year contracts to Enzo Fernandez and Mykhailo Mudryk in January.
Now, considering the rule will come into action, it won’t affect previous Chelsea players’ contracts who have signed eight- or nine-year deals.
How Todd Boehly masterminded contract deals at Chelsea
Since the American businessman became the owner of Chelsea, he has already spent £1 billion in the transfer window, and most of them have been big signings. But given the Blues’ poor performance and failure to qualify for the Champions League, it was certainly going to affect their Financial Fair Play rule.
But what Boehly did was spread those transfer fees until the course of their contract, which means the larger it is, the less annual payments are on the club’s accounts.
For example, an eight-year agreement would amortise a £100 million cost at only £12.5 million annually, compared to £20 million annually with a five-year term.
This is clever of our owners to have obtained around the Premier League FFP, but the club will certainly be impacted by the ban on handing deals that last longer than five years. Going forward, the Blues will need to make wise decisions during the transfer window because we can’t always justify spending a lot of money on players every summer given our current deficit record.
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We don’t seem likely to make it into the Champions League this season, which means we could record less profit and suffer financial consequences if we don’t place in the top four.