Chelsea's new signings' registration qualifications for the Champions League are in urgent need. Many strong new signings may miss the game?
2025-07-08
The Premier League giant Chelsea is facing an unprecedentedly severe challenge! Due to their previous violation of UEFA's financial regulations, they have not only been fined a huge amount but also may result in several of their major summer signings, such as Liam Delup, Joao Pedro and Jamie Gittens, missing out on the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League season. This undoubtedly casts a shadow over the future of the Blues.
Uefa has taken strong measures, making its recruitment efforts extremely difficult
Uefa has taken strong measures, making its recruitment efforts extremely difficult
Last week, UEFA issued a fine that shocked the football world: Chelsea was fined a huge amount of 27 million euros and was severely warned that if they failed to strictly abide by the financial fair play provisions, they could face additional penalties of up to 52 million euros in the future! This means that Chelsea must balance its accounts by selling or loaning out existing players in order for the new signings to qualify for the Champions League.
Uefa's regulations are meticulous. The "cost" of each player is composed of an annual salary and the amortization of transfer fees. Take the highly anticipated Delap as an example. His transfer fee of 30 million pounds, despite a six-year contract, was only allowed to be amortized over five years by UEFA, which means that 6 million pounds need to be recorded each year. In addition to his weekly salary of 100,000 pounds (approximately 5.2 million pounds per year), Chelsea needs to spend about 11.2 million pounds annually for him to meet the registration requirements for the Champions League.
It is urgent to sell players to free up financial space
To make room for new signings, Chelsea must "save" an equal amount of money from its current players. At present, the one most highly anticipated is Trevor Chalobah, who came from a youth training program and has a paper value of zero. If it can be successfully sold, the transfer fee of up to 40 million pounds will be fully included in the club's profits, providing strong support for offsetting the cost of new signings.
However, relying solely on the sale of Chalobah is probably not enough to solve the financial predicament that Chelsea is facing. For players like goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, the situation is even more complicated. He spent 25 million pounds when he transferred from Brighton. It has been amortized for two years and the remaining book value is still as high as 15 million pounds. If the selling price is lower than this value, the club will not be able to obtain the profit that can be used to balance the accounts, which undoubtedly greatly increases the operational difficulty.
At present, the news that striker Noni Madueke has reached a personal agreement with Arsenal has spread like wildfire. If this deal can be completed smoothly, Chelsea will obtain a key sum of funds, which undoubtedly can effectively relieve the current financial pressure.
Otherwise, the Blues are likely to have to face an embarrassing situation: the new signings they signed at a huge cost will not be able to appear in the Champions League next season due to financial constraints. This will not only seriously affect the team's competitive performance, but also undermine the confidence of the players and the expectations of the majority of fans.