I have a different question. Per TransferMarkt Chelsea have a roster of 43 players, 15 of whom are 21 or younger. What do they do when those 15 no longer qualify as U21? I doubt they will be able to loan them all out, so sometime in the next year or two they are going to have to have a fire sale.
By the time FIFA gets around to creating regulations with teeth, Chelsea will have found a different workaround, I'm sure.
Cole Palmer was under contract thru 2031 but he was good last year so they gave him a new contract until 2033. What's the point of tying these guys down long term if they are just going to ask for more anyway?
I guess if you are the player you might as well sign your whole career away but do you risk being the next Harry Kane? all your best years stuck at the wrong club?
This is what gets me. It's one thing to have creative accounting to get around spending rules. But how on earth are Clearlake paying for all this, and how do they plan to turn a profit? Todd's got investors he's got to keep happy.
i know right? like when they acquired Chelsea and then promptly spent 1 Billy on players - what was the plan to ever generate a return on that? how was that money raised and what was the idea to simply throw a wild amount of cash in to transfers? i’ve never seen any explanation.
like why not buy chelsea and simply NOT throw down an extra billion? they’d be way up on their investment compared to now.
Palmer can still put in a transfer request. Maybe Chelsea plan to play hardball and prevent anyone from leaving. But all it really seems to do is set a floor. If Palmer sucks, he sticks around for 9 more years collecting paychecks. If he gets better, he can sign a new contract or force a move.
The one thing is that they have signed younger players that will still have value well into their contracts. And they basically were the fourth best team in the league last year despite having a coach that didn't fit their squad.
Totally fair question as we haven't encountered this duration before. I'm sure someone has forced their way out of a club despite having 4 years left on a 5 year deal. Becomes a "do you want to keep an unhappy player around against their will" question.
There is also a chance that one or two of the players on 10 year contracts will suffer career ending injuries. I think Boehly’s baseball background may be a factor in this approach. With fewer cumulative injuries a higher percentage of baseball players play into their mid thirties than soccer players who play into their mid thirties.
You're probably correct, but even in baseball, fewer long term deals are going to pitchers with higher injury risk. And some long terms deals - Pujols with the Angels - end up as albatrosses. Baseball contracts are often designed to lock players in at below market rate. Chelsea already had Palmer under contract for 7 years - with an option - at 75k per week. They could have stuck with that rate. Instead they bumped him up to a reported 120k/week.
One benefit I can think of is they could maybe sell the player for more on the transfer market if there is still 4-5 years on the contract, instead of 1 or 2. But of course that depends on whether the player provides good value for his salary.
Its this really all dependant on salary. If you get them young enough even a low PL salary is a massive jump in earnings. The long contract let's you play hardball. If they are really good enough that they can demand a transfer you sell them up. This only works on volume though so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in reality. They have too many players to really platform anyone specifically, which means you may be left with a large squad of not elite players in medium salaries. Which is not particularly valuable? They have my attention at least.
Its weird to lock yourself in for so long especially when its not like he has a connection to Chelsea, if Saka signed for 9 years I could understand it maybe he wants to be a one club player but with Palmer he was a City lad growing up wasn't he? His wiki says born in Manchester, was a City youth player and was a City senior player before the move to Chelsea. The only way this makes sense is if they think in 5 years time Palmer might be at the level of Messi and a Real/PSG/Barca/Bayern will come in with a huge money move for him.
I wonder if there is a salary renegotiation clause in such a long contract As an example, commercial leases are quite long, but obviously the landlord doesn't want to get locked in to a rent for too many years into the future - so they have rent review clauses which are more frequent.