The takeover of Chelsea by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital last year sparked spending in the transfer market the likes of which the English game had not seen before.
Some £600m has been spent across two transfer windows since Chelsea came under US ownership, with Boehly, Clearlake and other minority investors such as Hansjoerg Wyss winning a fierce bidding war last year to take on the club for £2.5bn in the wake of the forced sale of the club from former owner Roman Abramovich due to UK government sanctions.
Players such as Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk, Nordi Mukiele, Benoit Badiashile, Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly and others joined, while a deal was agreed in December to bring in highly rated RB Leipzig forward Christopher Nkunku this summer.
With both UEFA and the Premier League’s financial fair play regulations a consideration, Chelsea opted for the tactic of offering deals of up to nine years to players so that the transfer fee could be amortised over a longer period. A transfer, regardless of whether the sum is paid in full or instalments, is costed in the accounts through amortisation, with the guaranteed transfer fee, not potential add-ons, divided by the number of years on the deal the player signed, which has typically been at five years max in Europe.
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UEFA introduced a rule to combat the use of amortisation in this way and capped deals at five years from this summer, although potential loopholes exist in terms of including options of three or four in the club’s favour to extend deals for their new signings and reduce the amortised cost at a later date.
It didn’t yield results in the first season. Not even close. The sacking of Champions League-winning Thomas Tuchel as head coach early in the season was deeply unpopular, and the decision to hire Brighton’s Graham Potter as part of a long-term vision for how the club would operate turned out to be flawed. Then came the return of Frank Lampard, who had a series of high-profile failures on his CV as manager, which saw Chelsea crawl to the finish line in an embarrassing 12th place.
Mauricio Pochettino will be the man in the dugout next season, the former Tottenham Hotspur manager having agreed a deal to take the club forward. The expensive squad that was assembled prior to his arrival means that room for manoeuvre is limited this summer and the carefree spending of last summer and January can’t be done unless there is some headway made in terms of recouping money from players deemed no longer required, with the club’s wage bill needing to be reduced.
Chelsea’s approach to the transfer activity over the last two windows has had an impact on the market. It has raised the bar for transfers, a similar effect that happened when Abramovich first took over at Stamford Bridge back in 2003, reshaping the landscape of the English game forever. But on the back of a deeply disappointing season, selling some of the assets that they wanted to move on for top end prices would have proved a challenge.
But the developments in Saudi Arabian football these past few weeks have kicked open the door to a potential opportunity to recoup some big money and give them the kind of flexibility that would allow them to cause issues for Liverpool and the rest of their rivals in the transfer market this summer.
The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, the owners of Newcastle United and the sovereign wealth fund of the gulf nation, agreed a deal earlier this month to acquire four of the country’s top Saudi Pro League sides; Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad, Al-Nassr and Al-Ahli. It was a move done to try and grow the clubs to make them able to be large, sustainable businesses that could start to challenge the global football dynamic.
It is a move that has already caused ripples, as the major push China did some years back for a similar plan had done at the time. Cristiano Ronaldo arrived at Al-Nassr to fire the starter’s pistol last year, and this summer the likes of Karim Benzema has opted to leave Real Madrid for Al-Ittihad, while Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 26-year-old midfielder Ruben Neves, linked with Liverpool at one stage and who had been in line for a move to Barcelona this summer, is set to move for around £47m to Al-Hilal.
Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante is poised to move to Al-Ittihad in a deal that is set to bring him more than £80m a year, while other players such as Hakim Ziyech, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Edouard Mendy and Koulibaly have all been attracting interest from Saudi Pro League clubs. It is an interest that could solve a major Chelsea problem, and one that isn’t without some controversy.
Major shareholders in Chelsea co-owner Clearlake are PIF, although suggestions of any Saudi involvement in the Chelsea takeover was rejected by the club last year. But with Boehly having headed to Saudi last week for talks with Al-Hilal, and with the pre-existing relationship that exists between PIF and Clearlake established, questions have arisen about how much influence that has been able to have on them finding new homes for players they want off their wage bill so that they can continue to operate with strength in the transfer market.
Chelsea being able to manage their situation by offloading players to Saudi for big money would help solve a problem that would allow them to focus on targets this summer, some of them that they share with Liverpool. That provides another challenge for the Reds in the market, although one of the major challenges that they could have to face up to is the growing strength of the Saudi league now that it has near limitless wealth behind its growth plans.
The moves for Ronaldo, Benzema and Kante have been seen before. The MLS has tried star power, so too China. When China made a major play to become a football powerhouse globally they raised eyebrows when they were able to take players in their prime, such as Oscar and Alex Teixeira to the Far East. The project collapsed due to China’s poorly performing economy and the enormous impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and it is a project that has now been all but abandoned, kicking the door open to Saudi Arabia to try its hand.
On the back of a World Cup in the Middle East, investment from the region into European football and increased interest in the game, and with huge financial resources existing to support it, the Saudi project appears to have greater potential for longevity. But with the huge sums of money being paid, not bound by UEFA regulations like their European counterparts, Saudi’s PIF-owned clubs can outmuscle even the strongest arms of football in Europe.
That poses potential problems for the likes of Liverpool and other clubs that look to recruit with a cost limit and seek player value growth. The first knockings of it are happening this summer, although not for the kind of profile of player that Liverpool would be targeting. But in seasons to come it could be that the landscape has shifted to the point where Saudi is place that offers players both young and in their prime both financial and competitive interest, and that is something that would be impactful for even the biggest European clubs.
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