Football
Chelsea’s financial (in)fair-play: 611 million euros in six months for transfers, why is UEFA doing nothing?
So this was the completion of absolute insanity and a display of power. Chelsea completed the craziest transfer window of all time with the most expensive transfer in Premier League history and fans are logically asking – where is the financial fair-play? That has long been forgotten.
So this was the completion of absolute insanity and a display of power. Chelsea completed the craziest transfer window of all time with the most expensive transfer in Premier League history and fans are logically asking – where is the financial fair-play? That has long been forgotten.
Chelsea started extremely strengthening in the summer, in new owner Todd Boehly’s first transfer window.
Wesley Fofana arrived at Stamford Bridge for €80m, Marc Cucurella for €65m, Raheem Sterling for €56m, Kalidou Koulibaly for €38m, Carney Chukwumueka for €16m, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for €12m, Gabriel Slonina for €9m and Juventus got €3m for hosting Denis Zakaria.
In total, Chelsea spent 281.99 million euros in the summer. But the Blues were not doing well in the autumn, so the American owner decided to bang the table in the winter. And buy even more.
Thus, João Félix arrived in London on loan for 11 million euros, David Datro Fofana for 12 million euros, Andrey Santos for 12.5 million euros, Malo Gusto for 30 million euros, Noni Madueke for 35 million euros, Benoit Badiashile for 38 million euros, Mykhaylo Mudryk for 70 million euros (another 30 million euros in bonuses) and as the icing on the cake, Enzo Fernandez arrived on the last day of transfers for 121 million euros.
In total, Chelsea spent 330 million euros in the winter transfer window. By comparison, the whole of La Liga spent €35 million in the winter transfer window.
In total, including the summer, Chelsea spent 611 million euros, almost doubling their record. So far, Barcelona have spent the most in a single season, spending €380 million on reinforcements in 2018/19.
This logically begs the question – where is some financial fair-play? Isn’t this exactly the kind of crazy spending that UEFA wanted to prevent? The correct answer is it didn’t want to. After all, UEFA never particularly enforced the rules of this system, and recently came up with a complete abolition.
Until now, teams that violated financial fair-play faced being banned from European competitions, which would have been a major blow. At the moment, if a team violates fair-play, it is fined and the fine is divided among the other teams in the next league.
So this rule has absolutely lost its value for the rich teams and the crazy owners ready to spend billions have no scruples. So the Premier League becomes a Super League that other teams have no chance of competing with.
Source: Transfermarkt