4 hours ago, OTL said:

A bit rambling but more Blue Co failings...

Inexperience the foundation 

“They disappointed me so much, even more than on Thursday,” O’Neil said of his charges. “Football is a shark tank, they need to realise that. I told them we were playing a cup final [against Angers] and we really didn’t play the way we should have.” At the centre of his disappointment is a familiar theme that has been found consistently in the criticism of the BlueCo project: this is a team built on a foundation of inexperience. 

Scouting, acquiring, and platforming young talent is the Raison d’être behind BlueCo’s acquisition of Strabsourg. The squad is filled with some of Europe’s most exciting talent, but it has come at the expense of having experienced figures in the dressing room to act as guides and mentors. Ben Chilwell and back-up keeper Karl-Johan Johnsson are the grizzled anomalies in an evergreen dressing room. 

It is a situation that has left leadership roles to players who have felt entirely unsuited to them. Emanuel Emegha’s captaincy has been the most emblematic of these failures, with the striker out of his depth as the team’s voice and diplomat. 

He’s spent most of the season out on the sidelines or frustrating the fanbase, either by signing a pre-contract agreement with Chelsea or by making misjudged comments, like when he told Dutch media he didn’t know where Strasbourg was before signing, saying, “I thought it was in Germany, but it turned out to be in France. Well, I think everyone knows Strasbourg now.” 

The big question for Strasbourg

What next for Strasbourg and these players is the big question that will be floating around the region until the transfer window opens. Without European football, how well will Le Racing be able to keep its young stars? There will be plenty of admirers for Valentén Barco, Samir El Mourabet, Martial Godo, Diego Moreira, Guela Doué, and Joaquin Panichelli. While the Chelsea loanees and Emegha will be gone. 

For O’Neil, the talent drain isn’t the only thing that concerns him. As he said on Sunday, “We also need to improve the club culture.” But how well can a club culture be built when the key selling point to prospective talent is that Le Racing is a giant shop window? How do you build something permanent and lasting when the nature of the project is so transitory? Can you get players to invest fully across an entire season, knowing that by the end of the campaign, they might be gone to pastures new?

If Gary O'Neill could get five minutes with Eghbali whilst the SDs are at lunch....now theres a thought.

On 11/05/2026 at 08:42, SydneyChelsea said:

Kind of. Fairview is an accountant and so is Paul Quinn, the original blogger. From the accountant POV BlueCo is funded by debt, not equity, because accountancy uses a common sense model where if I borrow the value of $100 from you on the condition that I will pay you back the value of $110 in a week's time, that is simply debt + interest. The definition is the same whether I pay back the $110 in cash, beer or a stake in my OnlyFans.

Legally, that isn't entirely correct. Quinn points out in his blog that corporate law in the US, UK and Cayman Islands all define these debt arrangements, where the interest can potentially be exchanged for a stake instead of cash, as equity.

As aside Paul Quinn's blog is really good (thanks to @carrickblue for getting back on it) and in his previous work he has exposed how the above makes the Premier League and FA's "due diligence" a bullsh*t toothless tiger. Because the above arrangements are legally protected as equity arrangements instead of debt, and even though both official accounting principals and common sense sees the arrangement as debt, the PL's tests cannot consider these arrangements as such. Even though Glazer-style leveraged buyouts are officially banned by PL rules, they have zero way of actually detecting them since you can just hide the debt facility in a US or Cayman Islands company. The ambiguity could also be exploited both ways to skirt UEFA or PL rules - for example, Ares (who own 30% of Atletico Madrid) could claim they are 'just a lender' to Clearlake even though they possess arrangements that effectively translate to a stake in Chelsea via its holding company.

Also, and probably most scarily, his blog outlines how virtually every EPL club uses similar debt arrangements to finance their transfers, where the transfer debt is sold to a private lender for instant cash while buying clubs pay in instalments. He predicts that if a few small clubs or one big club (Man U or Liverpool) default on an arrangement to a private lender, it will kick off a domino effect that would destroy the league. The Diarra judgement might well be that trigger in the next few years. He has done a really good job over the last 5 years exposing how toothless PL regulations actually are, how the system is a house of cards and how financial controls like PSR don't reflect anything like reality.

Whatbeggars belief for me is how on earth the richest league in the world by far has its own clubs drowning in massive debts. .

So much for the " football is a business like any other" It's nothing like any other business is it ? Syd, I started this comment with the intention of asking you something, but in the few seconds it's taken me to write this, it's completely gone out of my head !!!

Die. All of them just die.

2 hours ago, Munkunku said:

Die. All of them just die.

Just ignore the past few years lads. The REAL project starts now 😂

I am stealing @Bob stark's graphic to make a point about the our supposed "model"

'

The lie propagated by BlueCo/SDs in the media is that Chelsea are embarking on low-wage strategy is utterly laid bare whenever the accounts are published, and this graph encapsulates why.

The graph shows that we spent 100m less on wages this season than PSG. Despite this being one of the highest wage bills ever recorded in football history, it is a mere 5m more than what Chelsea spent on Garnacho and Gittens in fees alone. The above graph is embarassing when you compare it to transfer spend or even net transfer spend, we have spent so much on such dross it is truly shameful.

The fact that our wage bill still remains on par with City, Bayern, Arsenal, United etc despite BlueCo's claims also emphasises the lie that we cannot compete for 'top targets' like Barcola, Olise, Kvaratskhelia etc.

These figures actually are just another piece that confirms that our ownership and their five stooges have no idea what they are doing.

6 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

Whatbeggars belief for me is how on earth the richest league in the world by far has its own clubs drowning in massive debts. .

So much for the " football is a business like any other" It's nothing like any other business is it ? Syd, I started this comment with the intention of asking you something, but in the few seconds it's taken me to write this, it's completely gone out of my head !!!

I don't think we should be surprised because it's just another expression of the delusion of modern capitalism. For every entity that thinks growth is king, there is a private equity firm or bank willing to lend with interest. It's just debt bubble on top of debt bubble based on the delusion that growth is infinitely possible and that profiteering can solve all problems into eternity.

In trying to legislate owners such as Abramovich or the Gulf states out of football, governing bodies have simply aided and abetted the debt spiral by limiting the power of actually cash-rich owners while artificially equalising the power of owners that rely on debt-fuelled 'financing'. They pushed out owners putting money into the game in favour of ownership structures that extract money from the game. This is not new nor is it by accident, people such as myself and @dkw have said this will happen virtually the moment Wenger started his hypocritical bleating and when financial controls were being debated decades ago.

I don't even think we've seen the peak of the grift yet. With owners like Boehly, Clearlake, Ratcliffe etc, when it all falls apart there will be inevitable calls for the UK taxpayer to bail the PL out and solve the crisis.

We are simply witnessing the transfer of that wealth from the game itself to the private capital that funds it. This is the same story as what happened to Serie A in the 1990s and La Liga in the 2000s, and now it's the PL's turn.

Edited May 15May 15 by SydneyChelsea

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Just ignore the past few years lads. The REAL project starts now 😂

BlueCo mouthpiece pawn.

Chelsea signed a 'strategic partnership' with Roc Nation aka Jay-Z's entertainment company. Literally anything but a shirt sponsor for this lot.

The inexorable move away from being a football club to a CFC LDN "lifestyle brand" continues.

38 minutes ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Chelsea signed a 'strategic partnership' with Roc Nation aka Jay-Z's entertainment company. Literally anything but a shirt sponsor for this lot.

The inexorable move away from being a football club to a CFC LDN "lifestyle brand" continues.

If Rocawear is still a thing can they design our kits please?

7 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

I am stealing @Bob stark's graphic to make a point about the our supposed "model"

'

The lie propagated by BlueCo/SDs in the media is that Chelsea are embarking on low-wage strategy is utterly laid bare whenever the accounts are published, and this graph encapsulates why.

The graph shows that we spent 100m less on wages this season than PSG. Despite this being one of the highest wage bills ever recorded in football history, it is a mere 5m more than what Chelsea spent on Garnacho and Gittens in fees alone. The above graph is embarassing when you compare it to transfer spend or even net transfer spend, we have spent so much on such dross it is truly shameful.

The fact that our wage bill still remains on par with City, Bayern, Arsenal, United etc despite BlueCo's claims also emphasises the lie that we cannot compete for 'top targets' like Barcola, Olise, Kvaratskhelia etc.

These figures actually are just another piece that confirms that our ownership and their five stooges have no idea what they are doing.

Is this not just quantity against quality.

We do have a relatively low wage model, we just have so many players on the payroll?

6 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

I don't think we should be surprised because it's just another expression of the delusion of modern capitalism. For every entity that thinks growth is king, there is a private equity firm or bank willing to lend with interest. It's just debt bubble on top of debt bubble based on the delusion that growth is infinitely possible and that profiteering can solve all problems into eternity.

In trying to legislate owners such as Abramovich or the Gulf states out of football, governing bodies have simply aided and abetted the debt spiral by limiting the power of actually cash-rich owners while artificially equalising the power of owners that rely on debt-fuelled 'financing'. They pushed out owners putting money into the game in favour of ownership structures that extract money from the game. This is not new nor is it by accident, people such as myself and @dkw have said this will happen virtually the moment Wenger started his hypocritical bleating and when financial controls were being debated decades ago.

I don't even think we've seen the peak of the grift yet. With owners like Boehly, Clearlake, Ratcliffe etc, when it all falls apart there will be inevitable calls for the UK taxpayer to bail the PL out and solve the crisis.

We are simply witnessing the transfer of that wealth from the game itself to the private capital that funds it. This is the same story as what happened to Serie A in the 1990s and La Liga in the 2000s, and now it's the PL's turn.

Yep, this is where we have been heading for ages, since Man Utd floated on the stock exchange top level football has drifted towards being financially exploited by the big boys, especially the premier league as the tv payments skyrocketed. Now we are seeing the culmination of this as the huge finance companies take ownership and create models that basically see them being paid no matter via fees and interest, no matter what happens on the football side of things. All these owners are interested in is ROI, they will spend whats neeed to get the most back depending no the model they are working within. For us it seems to be loading us with debt so the fees and interest payments go up, so success on the pitch is pretty much meaningless.

Its funny seeing some people try and blame this on Romans purchase of us, when its absolutely nothing to do with that, in fact thats literally the opposite of whats happening now. This goes back to the Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal American ownerships, they are moving in en mass to the league to build voting rights so they can get exactly what they want.

The big problem is that they won't pay the money for the top players, but are happy to give plenty of mediocre players contracts far in excess of their actual ability. We have so many players that should be on £20-50K who are earning £80-150K, and indeed who all got 4/5-fold increases vs what they were on at their previous clubs. Combine that with the long contract model, and they become very difficult to sell when they inevitably fail to reach the required playing standards. This mob have had their pants pulled down by every agent they've "negotiated" with. And they've paid top dollar in agent fees for that privilege too LOL.

8 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

The big problem is that they won't pay the money for the top players, but are happy to give plenty of mediocre players contracts far in excess of their actual ability. We have so many players that should be on £20-50K who are earning £80-150K, and indeed who all got 4/5-fold increases vs what they were on at their previous clubs. Combine that with the long contract model, and they become very difficult to sell when they inevitably fail to reach the required playing standards. This mob have had their pants pulled down by every agent they've "negotiated" with. And they've paid top dollar in agent fees for that privilege too LOL.

They arent targeting big money players, they dont need to, that would just bring issues. They would rather hoard mid range players on mid range money, easier to manage and trade as needed, easier to load debt on to the club. They arent being had by agents, they are doing exactly what they aimed to do.

5 minutes ago, dkw said:

They arent targeting big money players, they dont need to, that would just bring issues. They would rather hoard mid range players on mid range money, easier to manage and trade as needed, easier to load debt on to the club. They arent being had by agents, they are doing exactly what they aimed to do.

They might be doing what they intended with the signing of players on inflated transfer fees for their "player trading" and "building business value" model, but the contract negotiations on wages are so in favour of the players that it doesn't make any sense that this would be deliberate.

Spending 72% of revenue on wages is a very poor position to be in, and likely to get worse with no CL revenue next year ...

10 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

They might be doing what they intended with the signing of players on inflated transfer fees for their "player trading" and "building business value" model, but the contract negotiations on wages are so in favour of the players that it doesn't make any sense that this would be deliberate.

Spending 72% of revenue on wages is a very poor position to be in, and likely to get worse with no CL revenue next year ...

Its not in favour of the player only, its asset valuation basically, its to protect that valuation and stretch that value to avoid the plummet in last 2 years of contract for as long as possible. All this is book keeping to keep the debt as high as possible to keep the interest and fees paid to the owners as high as possible.

8 minutes ago, dkw said:

Its not in favour of the player only, its asset valuation basically, its to protect that valuation and stretch that value to avoid the plummet in last 2 years of contract for as long as possible. All this is book keeping to keep the debt as high as possible to keep the interest and fees paid to the owners as high as possible.

But why would you want to pay a player 5x their current salary to get them to sign for Chelsea ? There's no benefit in that to Clearlake ? It just hurts the bottom line, and makes less money available for signing players ... I reckon they must be paying out about £100m a year too much on wages in relation to the quality of players they've signed ...

21 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

But why would you want to pay a player 5x their current salary to get them to sign for Chelsea ? There's no benefit in that to Clearlake ? It just hurts the bottom line, and makes less money available for signing players ... I reckon they must be paying out about £100m a year too much on wages in relation to the quality of players they've signed ...

Not sure but I expect it raises the value of the asset (player) on the books.

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

The big problem is that they won't pay the money for the top players, but are happy to give plenty of mediocre players contracts far in excess of their actual ability. We have so many players that should be on £20-50K who are earning £80-150K, and indeed who all got 4/5-fold increases vs what they were on at their previous clubs. Combine that with the long contract model, and they become very difficult to sell when they inevitably fail to reach the required playing standards. This mob have had their pants pulled down by every agent they've "negotiated" with. And they've paid top dollar in agent fees for that privilege too LOL.

But I don't think player that is on this medium salary is that difficult to sell though.

23 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

But I don't think player that is on this medium salary is that difficult to sell though.

One thing S&W have been reasonable at is player sales thus far ... albeit not too many of the players that they have bought themselves ... we shall see this summer I guess !

8 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

One thing S&W have been reasonable at is player sales thus far ... albeit not too many of the players that they have bought themselves ... we shall see this summer I guess !

Imo moving on from Garnacho (maybe?), gittens (not next season) , Delap is not that difficult. Yes you probably need to take some loss, but you will be fine.

The one that is hard to move is the like of Mudryk, Lavia (we beat arse and pool for their signature so they are not on cheap salary, even pre doping scandal, it is impossible to move Mudryk).

20 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

One thing S&W have been reasonable at is player sales thus far ... albeit not too many of the players that they have bought themselves ... we shall see this summer I guess !

I can't remember many players sold, can you remind me of those and what were the fees?

1 minute ago, RMH said:

I can't remember many players sold, can you remind me of those and what were the fees?

Just google transfer market, we sold many players.

23 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Imo moving on from Garnacho (maybe?), Gittens (not next season) , Delap is not that difficult. Yes you probably need to take some loss, but you will be fine.

The one that is hard to move is the like of Mudryk, Lavia (we beat arse and pool for their signature so they are not on cheap salary, even pre doping scandal, it is impossible to move Mudryk).

Mudryk earns less than Garnacho and Gittens according to the usual online sources, and Lavia is one of our lowest paid players, possibly due to his injury problems.

22 minutes ago, RMH said:

I can't remember many players sold, can you remind me of those and what were the fees?

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-chelsea/alletransfers/verein/631