CHELSEA are set for a summer sales extravaganza - to help balance the books after their unprecedented spending spree.
New Blues chief Todd Boehly has overseen deals which could add up to a staggering total £606m this season.
While offering long-term contracts to stagger payments - in accounting terms, over up to eight years will offset the official cost of the deals - Chelsea do have to start shifting some excess players to meet Financial Fair Play regulations.
And the need to sell will be heightened if Chelsea do not get back into the top four and miss out on the minimum £80m income from TV and gate receipts of reaching the knockout round of next season’s Champions League.
Chelsea’s January splurge of up to £329.9m, capped by the British record £107m capture of Benfica midfielder Enzo Fernandez, was on top of the huge summer outlay.
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It meant the Blues spent more last month than ALL the clubs in the other Big Five leagues - Spain, Germany, Italy and France - COMBINED.
Fernandez’s fee plus salary will add around £19m per year to Chelsea’s outgoings, estimated to bring them to a likely paper “loss” of around £180m in 2022-2023.
Prem rules limit clubs to losses of £35m per season over three years, with Uefa regulations allowing clubs to lose £26.5m over the same period, set to rise to £90m from next term.
But accountancy loopholes and “allowable losses” of £30m each year for spending on youth and women’s football and community projects mean Chelsea’s likely figures would still, just, be inside the permitted Prem loss level.
And while they are on course to bust the Uefa limit by around £22m this season, Euro chiefs only expect around 15 per cent of any fines - PSG had to pay only £8.4m of the £56m punishment levied in September - to be paid up front if clubs show they are taking steps to address the matter.
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For Chelsea, that would mean selling the players who do not appear to have a future under Graham Potter - and it was notable that all seven of the players signed on full contracts last month were 22 or under.
Keeper Edouard Mendy, now second choice, summer defensive flop Kalidou Koulibaly, Hakim Ziyech, potentially N’Golo Kante, Marc Cucurella and home-grown midfielders Conor Gallagher and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are all potential discards.
Any money raised by the sales of Gallagher or Loftus-Cheek would also see their full fee go straight into the accounts to help balance the “amortised” fees owed for this season’s 15 signed players.
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But without the Champions League income - Chelsea have already banked £82m including gate money this season - the finances will require significant sales.
It cranks up the pressure on Potter and his new recruits, currently 10 points adrift of fourth-placed Manchester United in 10th position, to turn the domestic season round - unless they earn qualification by winning the Champions League.
