What on earth is happening at Chelsea? Newcastle United the ones cheating the system?

So Chelsea have finally done it.

Spending a new Premier League record on one player.

Moises Caicedo heading to Stamford Bridge in a £115m deal.

That is 21 year old Moises Caicedo who has played one season of big boy football in the Premier League (Beerschot in the Belgian league his other experience) and in 2022/23 played 37 PL matches, starting 34 of them, scoring one goal and assisting one other.

The world has gone mad. I keep hearing the ‘experts’ saying about what a great player he is BUT then what value do you put on the great players who also do the most difficult thing, scoring and creating goals???

Speaking of the world having gone mad…

I love it how the luvvies in the media talk up the likes of Chelsea (and certain others…) constantly, so little negativity, whether that is the way their club operates overall, right down to individual transfer deals.

It is the polar opposite of what happens with NUFC, I know all football fans are paranoid BUT that still doesn’t mean the media aren’t out to get Newcastle United!!! Everything our club does, gets a negative spin put on it.

What on earth is happening at Chelsea? Why are Newcastle United the ones cheating the system?

Sky Sports have published some updated figures following the £115m Caicedo:

Biggest Spenders in the Premier League this summer

Chelsea – £285.9m

Arsenal – £208m

Manchester United – £179.2m

Tottenham – £164.8m

Newcastle United – £126m

Liverpool – £115m

Remember as well, that Liverpool would actually be very TOP of this list with £230m, £104m more than Newcastle, if Chelsea hadn’t at the last minute hijacked the scousers’ own £115m bid for the Brighton midfielder.

So when you look at the ‘Premier League big seven’, if you take away Man City who already have by far the best and very expensive team and squad, assuming if Liverpool hadn’t lost out on Caicedo, then Newcastle United would be at the very bottom of the spending list of the ‘big seven’ clubs trying to close on Man City.

I say again, how is it Newcastle United supposedly the ones cheating the system?

Sky Sports listed the major Chelsea deals this summer 2023 window:

Nicolas Jackson – £32m

Christopher Nkunku – £52m

Lesley Ugochukwu – £23.1m

Axel Disasi – £38.8m

Robert Sánchez – £25m

Moisés Caicedo – £115m

They also gave us the total figure spent by Chelsea under the new owners these past 14 months:

Sky Sports saying 27 signings costing £887.6m from summer 2022 onwards by Chelsea, whilst other media put that total spend way beyond £900m by their estimations.

Once again, how is it that Newcastle United are the big problem, the ones allegedly cheating the system?

I read an interesting article on The Athletic this morning about Chelsea.

What it attempted to do was explain how the Chelsea owners think they can do what they are doing / spending AND still not break FFP rules.

I won’t try and go into detail about the explanation because it is very complex and I will happily admit I only understood maybe 80% / 90% of it, however, the bottom line is that the Chelsea owners believe that due to the various accountancy rules and how you can shape things, with stuff like amortisation and length of contracts, plus with the players they have sold, plus the age of the players they are signing and bringing the wage bill down to an extent, with these younger players more willing to take lower basics with bigger cash reliant on targets, they can just about stay within FFP rules. This could well be of course as well dependent on them eventually announcing their new front of shirt sponsor AND getting results on the pitch to generate more cash, especially by getting into a Champions League qualifying place for next season.

So basically, they are juggling a lot of extra balls and hoping they can keep them in the air long enough. This also factors in that Premier League rules aren’t as strict as UEFA ones with FFP, so Chelsea having this season not under UEFA rules, but knowing that if/when they are back under them next season they will have to be in a better FFP state than currently.

As I said, not easy to understand or explain!

However, I don’t think it is necessary to know/understand the fine detail.

If you forget about their current season balancing due to FFP issues, it doesn’t at all alter the far bigger picture of Chelsea stacking up problems for another day.

Back in the days of easy to get mortgages / finance, you would often get say young couples buying a property with 110% mortgages. No deposit needed and as well as loaning the entire cost of your new house / flat, also getting another 10% of its vale on top of that, to spend on furniture, kitchen, garden and of course the biggest TV in the world.

So straight away, people owing at least 10% more than their house was/is actually worth.

In those days of much easier credit, these same debt loaded new buyers would then spend spend spend on other new stuff, expensive holidays, new cars and so on.

Much of this extra spend due to the ‘generous’ terms offered, basically, the number of years over which you could spread your repayments. So these couples for example, both earning decent money and thinking, well one more direct debit of £100 / £200 / £300 a month, we can afford that over the next three / four / five years. However, then the next spending idea comes along and another direct debit to be paid monthly for years and so on and so on.

Before you knew it, these monthly amounts to pay back, as well as your huge mortgage that was still higher than your house is/was worth, becoming a real stretch. Plus of course, any setback, such as even one just of you losing your job for a few months, meaning you were walking a total tightrope.

When it comes to loans over years for the couples – for Chelsea and how they operate with FFP, you can instead look at the spreading the cost of buying the player over the course of his contract via accountancy / amortisation.

They are building and building future problems for themselves, especially on FFP.

Not forgetting as well, these new Chelsea owners came in to make money of course, so at some point the sheer levels of spending and long-term potential losses will hit home.

Their stadium only holds 40,000 and at the very least, Chelsea are now battling a minimum of potentially six or seven other clubs for a place in the Champions League.

If Chelsea end up as only occasional, at best, qualifiers for the Champions League, what does that mean for their ‘carefully’ laid plans?