1 minute ago, Simplymo said:

Tons of them out there too...I've seen single expats spend all their money on them too, come home skint.

In a Muslim country?

Next you'll be saying there's drugs and alcohol!!!

3 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

There's your environmental pollution problem mate.

We don't make anything over here anymore!

Yep, brexit doesn't help either unfortunately.

19 minutes ago, Simplymo said:

Too big for any of the walls.

Unfortunately it's about 10 yrs old now and outdated, heading for the skip once I finish refurbishment upstairs. It's still in the wooden shipping box because it came via shipping container. Mehhh.

How big is it?  Most blokes I know would fill the whole wall if they could.  It’s usually the other half that says it’s too big because something or other blah blah.  Don’t really know I usually zone out probably day dreaming about scoring the winning goal in the Champions League final.  Or saving some scantily clad hotties in various disasters situations……

Forgot what I was talking about.  Anyway yeah bloody French.

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

He's certainly a safer bet.....I'm sorry, I know it's childish.  I just can't help myself.

What are the odds we end up with Calvert Lewin? 

27 minutes ago, Simplymo said:

Tons of them out there too...I've seen single expats spend all their money on them too, come home skint.

Not just the single ones I'm afraid

1 hour ago, The Rising Sun said:

Have we got a problem scoring goals ?

Not with this system and personnel.

If anything I'm concerned about the defense.

1 hour ago, DarkMata said:

Think those 15 goals came in just 25 games due to injury.   Plus to be fair Napoli finished 10th in the biggest collapse by the champions since 15/16 Chelsea.

All but a few of them were against bottom 5 teams though.

44 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

In a Muslim country?

Next you'll be saying there's drugs and alcohol!!!

Lots of alcohol too.

 

Only thing is drugs....then you'll be locked up in the dessert and never heard of again.

Basic rules...don't do anything in public and no drugs. Apart from that everything is available. 

As an expat you get given a alcohol book/like a receipt book. You can buy as much alcohol as your wages allocate. It's a percentage limit so you don't end up spending too much or all of it on alcohol. The more you earn the higher your limit.

But you can just pay double and get it anyway off the books. What I do on holidays out there...Still comes out cheaper than buying bottles from the hotel bar.

As long as you don't walk around the street pissed you're fine.

Hookers are in all the hotel bars, basically anyone sitting at the bar and not at tables. Or you'll find them in clubs, etc.

 

You know what the media is like, its the opposite of all that...there's churches and mosques on the same street, bikinis on the beach, alcohol in bars, just think of a very family oriented and conservative country. Do what you want at home but be decent and respectful in public. I've only been to Saudi a few times but I'd start with the UAE, dubai first. Least strict of the lot.

Edited August 28, 20241 yr by Simplymo

At least by tomorrow, this saga will be over one way or another. 

 

2 hours ago, Simplymo said:

Lots of alcohol too.

 

Only thing is drugs....then you'll be locked up in the dessert and never heard of again.

Well that's just the cherry on top! 

23 minutes ago, JM7 said:

At least by tomorrow, this saga will be over one way or another. 

Still waiting on that Dominic Calvert Lewin "here we go" to ruin everyone's weekend.

Drink, drugs, women, bars, beaches, bacon & bikinis = Turkey! 😉 Still secular, still brilliant. 

2 hours ago, Simplymo said:

Lots of alcohol too.

 

11 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

All but a few of them were against bottom 5 teams though.

If we'd won all our games against the bottom 5 last season we'd have had 12 more points and we'd have qualified comfortably for the Champions League !

Man City and Liverpool had 10 wins in those fixtures, Liverpool and Tottenham has 9 wins and a draw, Villa had 7 wins, 2 draws and one defeat, and even if we'd only matched that we'd have finished above them on goal difference for 4th.

On 19/08/2024 at 15:37, Sexyfootball said:

Plus Kepa and Chilwell and that's freed up a million a week give or take. You can see why they would want to go down that route. We get pretty shocking value for money from our current top ten earners ...  🙂 

I see they've put 18 year old Guiu on £100K a week according to Capology as well ... no wonder he was keen to come !

 

Treat these numbers with scepticism. 
 

Guiu was indeed said to be in these numbers but based on even 45 players, the average base wage of players is widely reported £70k a week. In effect Lukaku’s Chillwells, James, Fofanas ,and Sterling wages alone according to Capology would account for 15 players wages.

Of course some of the numbers are extreme but in all probability they are base on journalists guesstimating the numbers.

Back to Guiu I can’t immediately put my finger on it ( and yes it’s from another of those pesky journalists) the numbers ( base salary ) are said to be way below £50k a week.

The sooner we get some of the players like Kepa, like Lukas gone the better

2 minutes ago, terraloon said:

Treat these numbers with scepticism. 
 

Guiu was indeed said to be in these numbers but based on even 45 players, the average base wage of players is widely reported £70k a week. In effect Lukaku’s Chillwells, James, Fofanas ,and Sterling wages alone according to Capology would account for 15 players wages.

Of course some of the numbers are extreme but in all probability they are base on journalists guesstimating the numbers.

Back to Guiu I can’t immediately put my finger on it ( and yes it’s from another of those pesky journalists) the numbers ( base salary ) are said to be way below £50k a week.

The sooner we get some of the players like Kepa, like Lukas gone the better

Oh absolutely. 

The green tick on Capology is supposed to signify "verified" in some way but still guesstimates at best. 

Overall, probably about right. You can see the total amount spent on wages in the company accounts and the maths more or less works, even allowing for all the other club employees, the majority of whom who are probably on minimum wage, part-time, etc etc.

Interested to see to what extent BlueCo have this under control, as the changes they are supposed to have implemented were not readily obvious in the first published set of BlueCo accounts. Next year's should be a different picture based on what we have been told.

D-day. 

Really hope we DON'T sign this guy. The more I hear about him, the less he appeals to me.

 

46 minutes ago, Nibs said:

Really hope we DON'T sign this guy. The more I hear about him, the less he appeals to me.

 

I feel the same Bro' would MUCH rather have Toney.

Osimhen has previously said that Chelsea was not his choice. He earns ridiculous money which will not fit with Chelsea's new lower wage limits, bonuses etc.

He comes across as someone that wants thing all his own way, another Lukaku maybe ???

https://x.com/JacobsBen/status/1829086232665571812?t=0aj63cPllhDRI_qcwLZGUg&s=19

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

Oh absolutely. 

The green tick on Capology is supposed to signify "verified" in some way but still guesstimates at best. 

Overall, probably about right. You can see the total amount spent on wages in the company accounts and the maths more or less works, even allowing for all the other club employees, the majority of whom who are probably on minimum wage, part-time, etc etc.

Interested to see to what extent BlueCo have this under control, as the changes they are supposed to have implemented were not readily obvious in the first published set of BlueCo accounts. Next year's should be a different picture based on what we have been told.

The wage total again is a number that needs to be treated with extreme caution.

First off bear in mind that we have paid massive sums to agents, a massive chunk of that will be sums paid on behalf of the players agents cost.  Wasn’t it something like £80+ million in the 23/24 calendar year? These costs are treated as benefits in kind, in effect they are submitted to HMRC as pay and will be grossed up and added to whatever sum is paid by the club you will add, almost certainly 45% tax and 13% employers NIC as well as the employees element. If you assumed say £49 million was the players element by the time you factor in tax/ nic it’s going to be over £80 million . That’s before you factor in re settlement sums , again a benefit in kind if it exceeds certain limits.

 Then you have to work out what it was costing to run the hotels ( a clever move by the new owners ) something that won’t now feature in the overall running costs going forward, hospitality , commercial and administration which the only person I have ever seen try to estimate was a pundit who suggested for Everton it would be about 70% of total wage costs on players wages but again they pay a greater % of total wages on  players because many of their off field functions such as retail and catering are franchised / outsourced.

 

Three other quite major issues .
 

1)As I pointed out included in wage costs shown in the accounts  are the employers 13% ish Nic . That won’t be included in the wage estimates 

2) In the 22/23 numbers it’s highly likely that settlements to ex directors may well have been included. Payments to directors will have been referenced separately but I read somewhere that around £40 million paid to individuals was being recharged to Blue co

3)  wage costs for academy & woman’s football is in that overall number so my best guess is that with support staff that’s circa £30 million Pa 

1 hour ago, Nibs said:

Really hope we DON'T sign this guy. The more I hear about him, the less he appeals to me.

 

Yeah, smacks of arrogance. These statements his agent kept coming out with demanding respect to his client are laughable. 

I have no problem if a player wants to make a fortune while he can because the window of opportunity to make money is quite short for a professional footballer. Earning half a million a week while barely doing f**k all in Saudi Arabia is certainly an appealing offer. Obviously you miss out on playing at the top level but it's his life and his money, so who are we to judge. The only thing is, give him a deadline to make up his mind and move on if he keeps stalling.

I just hope we don't end up missing out on both Osimhen and Toney. We clearly need a proven goalscorer.

23 minutes ago, terraloon said:

The wage total again is a number that needs to be treated with extreme caution.

First off bear in mind that we have paid massive sums to agents, a massive chunk of that will be sums paid on behalf of the players agents cost.  Wasn’t it something like £80+ million in the 23/24 calendar year? These costs are treated as benefits in kind, in effect they are submitted to HMRC as pay and will be grossed up and added to whatever sum is paid by the club you will add, almost certainly 45% tax and 13% employers NIC as well as the employees element. If you assumed say £49 million was the players element by the time you factor in tax/ nic it’s going to be over £80 million . That’s before you factor in re settlement sums , again a benefit in kind if it exceeds certain limits.

 Then you have to work out what it was costing to run the hotels ( a clever move by the new owners ) something that won’t now feature in the overall running costs going forward, hospitality , commercial and administration which the only person I have ever seen try to estimate was a pundit who suggested for Everton it would be about 70% of total wage costs on players wages but again they pay a greater % of total wages on  players because many of their off field functions such as retail and catering are franchised / outsourced.

 

Three other quite major issues .
 

1)As I pointed out included in wage costs shown in the accounts  are the employers 13% ish Nic . That won’t be included in the wage estimates 

2) In the 22/23 numbers it’s highly likely that settlements to ex directors may well have been included. Payments to directors will have been referenced separately but I read somewhere that around £40 million paid to individuals was being recharged to Blue co

3)  wage costs for academy & woman’s football is in that overall number so my best guess is that with support staff that’s circa £30 million Pa 

Generally speaking I believe our amortisation burden will be a much bigger challenge than the wage-bill going forward. I've given up trying to estimate it but we've already broken the record by a spectacular distance when it comes to amortisation and it looks like its going to continue to rise.

It looks like selling some big players every summer for PSR-profit is going to be a big part of the strategy going forward. It would not at all surprise me if R.James gets the same treatment as Chalobah, Gallagher and the others next summer for example.

8 minutes ago, OriginalS said:

Generally speaking I believe our amortisation burden will be a much bigger challenge than the wage-bill going forward. I've given up trying to estimate it but we've already broken the record by a spectacular distance when it comes to amortisation and it looks like its going to continue to rise.

It looks like selling some big players every summer for PSR-profit is going to be a big part of the strategy going forward. It would not at all surprise me if R.James gets the same treatment as Chalobah, Gallagher and the others next summer for example.

I believe you are right, but you are also wrong. The amortisation burden is going to be a challenge, but I don't think we will be forced into/continue to dispose of Cobham royalty to continue to comply. 

Right or wrong, I believe Trev and Conor are being pushed on because we dont think they are good enough, as well as helping with PSR. 

A big part of our 'strategy' is going to relate to the endless wave of £20m players we seem to sign. That question of how will they all ever play for us? They wont. The fee is small enough that even the failures will let us break even with long contracts so that we dont lose them on a free. But any wins that we get (and by wins I mean players we can shift for between 30-50) the extra fee on top of whatever we have paid is going to work in the same way as shifting the cobham boys.

Annoyingly, Cobham is plugging the gap whilst the first few years of this project take place (I see it as Cobham providing the start up money) but, if things go as planned, our transfer policy isnt going to reliant on it moving forward. 

This doesn't mean there won't be some sales, but I think the narrative of us selling homegrown to pay for crazy business will eventually become a thing of the past. 

Fabrizo:

”Plan revealed now confirmed: Al Ahli delegation has arrived in Italy for direct talks with Osimhen and his camp.

Contract on table with release clause, as Osimhen wanted.

🔵↪️ Chelsea in active talks with Osimhen on salary.

Al Ahli deal only happen if #CFC talks collapse.”