Of course, but we signed him in 2012, so he's out of scope for the sample set I was looking at ... "last 10 years ... buy/sell ... "
The previous regime had precious few players that we sold for more than we paid for them, Hazard being the notable exception. That's not necessarily a criticism btw, just an observation. Roman was walking to the beat of a very different drum in financial terms to BlueCo ....
We actually had plenty of first-team players that were sold for an actual or book profit (Oscar, Costa, Morata, Havertz, Salah, De Bruyne and so on).
A large proportion of our "losses" on transfers were because we kept players for their entire peak before moving them on, where arguably the club extracted a football value rather than a financial one from them.
Of course, people only remember the spectacular busts like Torres and Lukaku.
A snapshot of ‘the model ‘ working.
A path to sustainability:
-sell a few academy players every year, for pure profit goodness. Every million helps.
- Sell 2-3 young investments every year. Buy young and (relatively) cheap - and move them on quickly after a season or 2 (Lesley, Santos, Petrovic, Washington all next to go?)
- Sign young players on long contracts - giving control, and amortisation benefits. Low base wages mean these assets will be more attractive to buying clubs, in theory meaning Chelsea can get a higher transfer fee if they choose to sell. Assume the likes of Mudryk, Veiga, Gusto and Jackson would all fit this model.
It’s all about the money - it’s all about the dum dum dum dum dum dum dum
We were already doing this previously, it is nothing new. It will work some years and won't in others. The only reliable profit is always going to be from our academy.
The problems are:
- We're getting bailed out by Saudi, which is a unique circumstance. That will not always be an option for promising young players
- Our profits are mediocre rather than substantial. Angelo is a nice win, but none of the others mentioned will make substantial net profit because we paid a lot for them in the first place. However, the club seems less concerned with this than with ensuring a PSR/FFP book profit.
- Webster ruling: Players are free to buy themselves out of their contract after 3 years irrespective of contract length. While this rule is rarely exercised at present, that is largely because clubs offer short contracts and are often trying to negotiate the best sale value rather than keep the player. A player on a seven-year contract might feel very differently. Interestingly the Webster ruling also effectively caps the transfer fee to the remaining length of a player's contract, but a long contract fortunately offers some protection in this regard.
- We are known as a 'selling' club, so our standing in negotiations is already compromised to an extent. It seems like that might have backfired a little this year with no clubs seemingly interested in our players.
