14 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Brighton aren't really even that profitable. They have several hundred million pounds of interest-free owner loans propping them up if I remember rightly, just like we had with Roman. They did have a good year on the balance sheet in 22/23, thanks to us overpaying them for Caicedo, Cucurella, Potter et al, but were losing money in the three years preceding that though. 

I don't think that clubs can use loans in the transfer market? It has to come solely from the club's income .

The finance for building  the Amex might well have come from Tony Bloom as that spending is not included in FFP rules.. . No one is  allowed to do what we did under Abramovich anymore. . And for a club that had to play its home games at Gillingham of all places, after being shafted by the then owners, it's been a remarkable comeback.

I know Chelsea fans have got a dislike of Brighton' , but it was US that bought their players ,poached their manager and staff..

And I've just watched them beat the team who we lost to a few weeks ago. I might be biased because I now live on the South coast and know lots of their fans, for them just to have a club, let alone a PL club and their own stadium seems to be enough for the old diehards fans.

Mind you, we could do with beating the f**kers in the 2 upcoming games against them.

 

Edited January 17, 20251 yr by The Rising Sun
Info

41 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

I don't think that clubs can use loans in the transfer market? It has to come solely from the club's income .

The finance for building  the Amex might well have come from Tony Bloom as that spending is not included in FFP rules.. . No one is  allowed to do what we did under Abramovich anymore. . And for a club that had to play its home games at Gillingham of all places, after being shafted by the then owners, it's been a remarkable comeback.

FFP/PSR placed an upper limit on the total amount of lending permitted for operational costs (105m per 3 years). Currently, Bloom or any other owner can loan their club 105m every three years to cover transfer, wage or other operational costs, which is the same as what Abramovich did though obviously to a slightly lesser extent. 

Shareholder loans are not just permitted, they are currently excluded from being an "associated-party transaction". They don't get assessed for market value like other transactions, i.e. BlueCo buying a hotel from Chelsea or a shirt sponsorship deal so owners are free to lend their clubs cash with zero interest. 

However, Man City have since successfully argued that this is illegal and anti-competitive, so the clubs will take a vote later this year to decide whether to require fair market value assessments of shareholder loans too.

 

 

6 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

FFP/PSR placed an upper limit on the total amount of lending permitted for operational costs (105m per 3 years). Currently, Bloom or any other owner can loan their club 105m every three years to cover transfer, wage or other operational costs, which is the same as what Abramovich did though obviously to a slightly lesser extent. 

Shareholder loans are not just permitted, they are currently excluded from being an "associated-party transaction". They don't get assessed for market value like other transactions, i.e. BlueCo buying a hotel from Chelsea or a shirt sponsorship deal so owners are free to lend their clubs cash with zero interest. 

However, Man City have since successfully argued that this is illegal and anti-competitive, so the clubs will take a vote later this year to decide whether to require fair market value assessments of shareholder loans too.

 

 

Thanks for your reply mate. What do you reckon the new nine and 9 and half year deal at  £500k a week Citeh have just given to Haaland? 

Do you reckon they must know they've mostly beaten the charges ? 

Had a whole month in November where everyone thought we had nailed it. 

Some of the rumours flying around raise some serious questions about the building of this squad.

Felix on loan , Nkunku sold, Veiga on loan/sold, KDH loan or sold, Tosin sold. 

What is going on here? 

Some of the buisness we have done is mind boggling, yes we might make a decent profit on Tosin and Veiga, so flipping them quickly, could be seen as good buisness. But then you offset that by the massive loss we will inevitably make on KDH, and taking on Felix to lose out season after season. 

We aren't a serious club anymore, we replaced an old bloated squad, with a young bloated squad. I don't see any real plan to actually win.

Get me an Osimhen and Rodrygo. Players of that calibre ready to win now. 

Instead we will go with more over priced project players. That may or may not be good enough to challenge for the title after a few seasons. 

No other big club operates like this. There needs to be an element of win now at a big club. Not even going for top players because this self imposed wage cap is just a smoke screen. We must have money to burn if we can be this poor in the transfer market. 

 

I don't think Tosin goes, and KDH will be you expensive to move out, imo.

Still if the club had their way I can honestly see all of our summer signings sold or loaned this window.

Still though Trust the Process right? Anyone still believe that process leads to a competitive Chelsea team?

Beavis and f**king Butthead!!

God I miss Cech/Granovskaia. And Emenalo. Hell, give me Arnesen or Kenyon. I might even consider Gourlay. These guys have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. The squad building has been completely inept and clueless, the treatment of loyal players atrocious while we’ve received no communication or attempts to bond with the fans. Somehow they seem exempt from any criticism from the ownership though, probably because they’re doing papa Egbhalis bidding. 
Hard to stay positive seeing how incompetent we are as a club at the moment, but we’ll rise again. Might have to wait out these SD’s and their paymasters, though

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

I don't think Tosin goes, and KDH will be you expensive to move out, imo.

Still if the club had their way I can honestly see all of our summer signings sold or loaned this window.

Still though Trust the Process right? Anyone still believe that process leads to a competitive Chelsea team?

Don't forget we are developing young talent by loaning them out to other teams in the hope that those teams will develop them for us.

They will return as ready made PL wonder kids. ... isn't that the plan ?

Stewart explains the long contracts given to our players..... so we really ARE developing players and developing talent !!......

Elsewhere he explained that it's got nothing to do with PSR rules, " because there's no PSR benefits from giving long contracts '

So, we were obviously all wrong about that ,!

V

V

 

"You’ve got to get that right if you’re going to put players on these long contracts and then it’s your ability to develop players and develop talent, and that’s one of the key things that we talk about internally, is to make our players better, across all of our teams.”

From the Chelsea News site ( November 2024)

There is praise from within for Stewart and Winstanley,” Steinberg writes, citing sources at the club.

 

“They took the controversial decision to move on from Pochettino after judging the campaign as a whole. They have had their critics but the sense is that Chelsea are getting more right than wrong now. Every manager depends on their players and Maresca has, in the words of one ally, inherited a “bloody good squad'

🤣

”.

Media spins whatever narrative the owners pay them to spin.

The performance of these two individuals is really quite poor when you consider a few things.

Their previous experience was at Brighton and Monaco and therefore you would expect them to bring all thats good from those experiences and indeed at their interviews there would surely have been much discussion on such matters.

We might have expected signings of the best individuals, and/or the ones with the greatest potential, and /or the best value for money with an eye for sell on etc etc.

and surely they would have had to have almost promised such things and the owners might have noted these things.

What we got was Potter Cucurella Sanchez Badashiele and Disasi and maybe a few other gems.

How on earth are these two individuals still here and how is the process still apparently the same ? Was this all just bad luck and it will sort itself out ? 

Further to that the smaller matter of bringing KDH in . His previous club Manager hasnt used him, £35 mill has been wasted, KDHs time has been wasted .....pure genius from these two. Was this deal done in a vacuum ?  

They have got it right with a few players but that is their job and in no way a balance versus the failures.

 

Edited January 18, 20251 yr by OneTommyLangley

Next bit of squad planning. 

Right centre back

Promote 18 year Achaempong, to fill in for the injured Fofana, and play ahead of Disasi and Tosin.

Recall 19 year old Anselmino, big money signing from Boca.

Bring back Chalobah from what was a successful loan, and would've helped sell him in the summer, to presumably play ahead of the 4 other right centre backs, and the injured Fofana.

Sign 19 year old Strasbourg centre back to loan straight back to to same feeder club and join in the summer.

summer 2025 right centre back

Fofana 26 £80m

Disasi 26 £35m

Tosin 27 £0

Achaempong 18 £0

Chalobah 26 £0

Anselmino 19 £18m

Sarr 19 £10m

7 players for effectively 2/3 places in the squad. None are ready to challenge for a title, maybe Fofana is Champions Leauge level if he could stay fit. The rest are years away, or not good enough.

£150m spent, and not even got the position sorted. 

Now Boehly has to take responsibility for the Fofana signing, but this is pretty much the same story for GK, LB, LW, ST. 

Money spent, players bought, but no improvement in quality, and holes everywhere.

3 minutes ago, big blue said:

Next bit of squad planning. 

Right centre back

Promote 18 year Achaempong, to fill in for the injured Fofana, and play ahead of Disasi and Tosin.

Recall 19 year old Anselmino, big money signing from Boca.

Bring back Chalobah from what was a successful loan, and would've helped sell him in the summer, to presumably play ahead of the 4 other right centre backs, and the injured Fofana.

Sign 19 year old Strasbourg centre back to loan straight back to to same feeder club and join in the summer.

summer 2025 right centre back

Fofana 26 £80m

Disasi 26 £35m

Tosin 27 £0

Achaempong 18 £0

Chalobah 26 £0

Anselmino 19 £18m

Sarr 19 £10m

7 players for effectively 2/3 places in the squad. None are ready to challenge for a title, maybe Fofana is Champions Leauge level if he could stay fit. The rest are years away, or not good enough.

£150m spent, and not even got the position sorted. 

Now Boehly has to take responsibility for the Fofana signing, but this is pretty much the same story for GK, LB, LW, ST. 

Money spent, players bought, but no improvement in quality, and holes everywhere.

I doubt all these young players are being bought with ambition to win the title in years ahead. Its all about return on investment. Most of them will be sold in within a few years. Not really sure what the ambition of the owners is beyond making money to be honest.

12 minutes ago, forbzy said:

I doubt all these young players are being bought with ambition to win the title in years ahead. Its all about return on investment. Most of them will be sold in within a few years. Not really sure what the ambition of the owners is beyond making money to be honest.

They have spent £1.2B, not sure if can see the logic in trying to flip young players for profit. There is no way they make money back doing that. 

They have spent so much that the only way they make profit on their investment is by growing the club on the whole, that means new stadium and success on the pitch. 

They would not be signing Enzo and Caicedo for record fees, if they were didn't want to compete for trophies. 

It just seems like a constant contradiction. If we had cut down spending and bought loads of kids, then I would agree.

9 minutes ago, big blue said:

They have spent £1.2B, not sure if can see the logic in trying to flip young players for profit. There is no way they make money back doing that. 

They have spent so much that the only way they make profit on their investment is by growing the club on the whole, that means new stadium and success on the pitch. 

They would not be signing Enzo and Caicedo for record fees, if they were didn't want to compete for trophies. 

It just seems like a constant contradiction. If we had cut down spending and bought loads of kids, then I would agree.

I agree I cannot totally figure out what they are trying to do. But one factor in common with almost all the signings is the young age of players and long contracts. It is fine to bring in a decent number of young players if you are building for the future but there needs to be some balance if we want to compete for significant trophies. Even the United team that managed to win trophies after Alan Hansen wrote them off with "You win nothing with kids" had plenty of experience in the squad alongside the youth.

23 minutes ago, big blue said:

They have spent £1.2B, not sure if can see the logic in trying to flip young players for profit. There is no way they make money back doing that. 

They have spent so much that the only way they make profit on their investment is by growing the club on the whole, that means new stadium and success on the pitch. 

They would not be signing Enzo and Caicedo for record fees, if they were didn't want to compete for trophies. 

It just seems like a constant contradiction. If we had cut down spending and bought loads of kids, then I would agree.

At this point would we really rule out this approach. Are these two the inspiration Stewart and Winstanley were searching for

Just waiting for Drake's to be converted into a Casino

Edited January 20, 20251 yr by WhiteWall

The big problem with this "player trading profit" model is that they have forked out £1.2B of transfer fees for players that were probably only worth about £800m to begin with. 

They got lucky with Palmer, who has probably gone up £100m or so, but no way the collective of the rest will backfill a £300m hole in the fees, and that's before you factor in what was paid to agents, plus wages (and associated poor wage negotiation to triple certain salaries when it almost certainly wasn't necessary), manager compensation at both ends of the hiring process ... all in all what Gunny Highway would have called "a cluster f**k" 🙂 

49 minutes ago, big blue said:

They have spent £1.2B, not sure if can see the logic in trying to flip young players for profit. There is no way they make money back doing that. 

They have spent so much that the only way they make profit on their investment is by growing the club on the whole, that means new stadium and success on the pitch. 

They would not be signing Enzo and Caicedo for record fees, if they were didn't want to compete for trophies. 

It just seems like a constant contradiction. If we had cut down spending and bought loads of kids, then I would agree.

With the pipline of players through the academy, you can see from 11 years and up who will make the grade or wont so you can target top young pros to fill the gaps in the first team. 

James, Chalobah, Colwill, (including) Hall is an academy defence that means you dont have to spend 120 million on Desasi or Badeshile or Cucurella and could be spent elesewhere or attracting Vinicius type players. 

Just think the owners strategy was wrong from the get go and we're starting to see it play out at various levels now. Given most clubs now have pretty Stella academies, players are not selling for top fees anymore unless we pay them and the pressing game means players have to be more athletic than footballers and its easier to find those in club systems. 

 

 

These two must have some special skills to be able to waste millions upon millions and still have jobs.

Pair of f**king idiots

Ok, putting my new positive outlook to one side here.

 

I want to know if there is one person on this forum willing to defend these terrible, terrible directors?

Anyone? Lavia out indefinitely and they refuse to recall Santos and Lesley to help out Caicedo, and our team. 

Cause lord knows all we have without Lavia is Caicedo, the rest of the options we have are not midfielders of PL level.

As Argo also pointed out our best back line is ALL players these directors DID NOT sign, and players they wasted money on are back ups.

 

James (Youth)

Chalobah (Youth)

Colwill (Youth)

Cucurella (62mill, signed by Todd)

 

Vs

 

Gusto (25mill)

Disasi (40mill)

Badiashile (35mill)

Veiga (12mill)

 

And that's not even getting in to all the other positions they have messed up on.

 

Basically they get credit  for two signings. Caicedo, who they almost bungled had he not turned Pool down, and Palmer, who mainly is down to Joe Shields.

On 17/01/2025 at 21:11, The Rising Sun said:

Thanks for your reply mate. What do you reckon the new nine and 9 and half year deal at  £500k a week Citeh have just given to Haaland? 

Do you reckon they must know they've mostly beaten the charges ? 

I think they don't care either way and want to ensure they will be duly compensated if another club comes calling for him. Realistically though, only Real Madrid can afford him and they already have Mbappe.

People underestimate Man City's current on-paper revenue, these days it is only behind Manchester United and Real Madrid. First of all, they signed Haaland relatively cheaply with conservative estimates of the total fee (including bonuses) being just £85m, and that was already offset by big outgoings that season (Arsenal paid for Haaland through Jesus and Zinchenko alone). On a five year contract, his PSR accounting cost is just £43m a season, a fraction of their reported £718m current revenue.

The charges are irrelevant to Man City if they strong-arm the other clubs into voting down the APT rules. Since so many clubs in the league rely on favourable shareholder loans they are using this as political influence to coerce the other clubs to vote against fair market value assessments for sponsorship rules. Brighton, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest all rely on shareholder loans and Chelsea, Newcastle and Man United also have a lot to gain if third-party sponsorships are no longer restricted. Without restrictions on the value of sponsorships, Man City can turbocharge their revenue with UAE company sponsorships and won't worry about any FFP/PSR concerns ever again.

They are good scouts but are awful team builders.

Their job isn't supposed to be cherrypicking talented youth to be raised, farmed and sold. 

Their job is to build winning teams year in year out.

How tf is it that hard to get that through their skulls?