TODD Boehly has wasted no time in splashing the cash on new transfers since buying Chelsea in May 2022.
Here we take a look at how much Chelsea has spent in the 2023 transfer window and if the club has breached financial fair play rules.
PAChelsea FC owner has spent millions during the 2023 transfer window[/caption]
How much has Chelsea spent in the 2023 transfer window?
New owner Todd Boehly shelled out £600million across the last two transfer windows in a remarkable six months of manic dealings.
Chelsea are just shy of spending £1billion on incoming signings in just three windows.
Nine players signed permanent deals at Stamford Bridge with a further eight stars arriving in West London in January – and the spending spree shows no signs of slowing down with another nine new faces confirmed this summer.
The Blues are set to take their summer spending to more than £360m after wrapping up a deal for Moises Caicedo, with Romeo Lavia also set to follow.
Has Chelsea breached financial fair play rules?
In August 2023, former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan explained how Chelsea have spent nearly £1billion and still complied with financial fair play rules.
Jordan said on talkSPORT: ”They’ve spent £800million on players, they’ve spent £600million last year and capitalised that over eight years because all of those players were on eight-year contracts, so all of a sudden that £600million spend is averaging at £75million per year because you’re dividing £600million by eight.
”He’s [Boehly] now had that change because the football fraternity has said ‘you can’t do that over eight years’, so they’ve rolled it back to five years.
”This year’s spend will be £300million, or round about that, and that’ll be reducing to £60million per year – so he’s now losing £75million each year for last year’s spend, plus £60million this year, but he’s gone and sold £250million worth of players in three transfer windows and all of those players have deduced an outcome that is profitable to Chelsea.”
Jordan continued: ”If you’re depreciating that at £135million a year and you’ve just sold £250-£260million worth of players over three transfer windows with most of those players – with the exception of Timo Werner who was sold at breakeven – are booking you a profit, you’ve just covered the last 18 months worth of potential losses and going into next year as well.
”In 18 months’ time if Chelsea are still spending at this level and are still carrying that level of depreciation and haven’t balanced the books by selling more players and haven’t got into the Champions League then they’re going to get caught.”
However, in July 2023, it was reported that Chelsea had been hit with an £8.6million fine for Financial Fair Play breaches stretching back to the Roman Abramovich era.
A Uefa probe into the club’s finances was opened after the Stamford Bridge outfit’s new owners reported the issues last summer.
In a statement, Uefa said: “Following the club’s sale in May 2022, the new ownership identified, and proactively reported to Uefa, instances of potentially incomplete financial reporting under the club’s previous ownership.
“The reported matters related to historical transactions which took place between 2012 and 2019.”
With Uefa having a three-year statute of limitations over FFP breaches, Chelsea only faced punishment for the rule-breaking in the 2018-2019 season.