Chelsea took too long - Newspaper Kommersant No. 13 (7458) dated 01/25/2023

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) intends to revise the financial fair play (FFP) rules due to Chelsea's transfer policy. The London club is actively exploiting the gaps in the regulations, which allowed it to buy players for a record £460 million this season, while meeting the FFP standards. The essence of the scheme is to enter into very long contracts with players and use the depreciation rule. The latter allows you to take into account the value of the player on the balance sheet not all at once, but in equal parts. The most striking example of bypassing the regulations was the purchase by Chelsea from Shakhtar of Ukrainian midfielder Mikhail Mudryk for €100 million. At the same time, he signed a record-breaking contract for the English Premier League (EPL) for eight and a half years.

The Union of European Football Associations intends to close a loophole in the FFP rules that allows clubs to actually bypass spending limits. This is reported by The Times and Daily Mail, citing their sources. Chelsea's transfer policy pushed UEFA to take action, which since last summer, after the club came under the control of Todd Boehley (the American bought the team from Roman Abramovich, who was forced to part with it after being included in the sanctions lists of Western countries), bought players for record £ 460 million. The previous record was set by Manchester City in the 2017/18 season. Then the Manchester team bought for £ 328.1 million. Such a strange generosity of Chelsea aroused the outrage of other clubs in the Premier League. A number of them have asked UEFA to check whether Chelsea's actions are in line with the FFP regulations. However, violations there, it seems, can not be found. Simply because Londoners use gaps in the rules.

According to the general rule of the International Football Federation (FIFA), it is not allowed to sign contracts with players for more than five years. But it has a lot of exceptions that clubs use. It's not just about Chelsea. The Londoners simply performed too brightly, which attracted attention.

The essence of the scheme used by teams to bypass FFP is simple. The FFP regulation contains a depreciation rule. That is, the cost of a player bought, say, for $100 million and signed a contract for five years, will be taken into account in the expenditure side of the balance sheet in equal shares of $20 million per year. This means that the longer the player's contract, the less he puts pressure on the club's reporting. Hence Chelsea's uncharacteristic for modern football agreements with the players. So, Marc Cucurella was bought for £55 million and signed a six-year contract. Wesle Fofan has a seven-year contract (he cost the club £70m plus £10m in possible bonuses). And then there's Cesare Casadei (£12.6m and six years), Benoit Badiashile (£33.7m and seven and a half years), David Datro Fofana (£10m and seven and a half years). And, finally, the Ukrainian midfielder Mykhailo Mudryk, bought from Shakhtar for £88 million (about €100 million) and signed a contract for eight and a half years at once. The Premier League has never known such lengthy agreements. Actually, the case with Mudrik became the catalyst for the complaint of the Premier League clubs against Chelsea. In the updated rules, UEFA intends to ban the calculation of depreciation for a period of more than five years. The updated regulation will come into force next summer. But it will not affect the deals that have already been concluded.

Alexander Petrov