UEFA are set to close a Financial Fair Play ‘loophole’ that Chelsea have exploited to navigate rules with the club’s recent recruitment.
Chelsea have set spending records since last summer and have invested more than £400m across the past two transfer windows, the highest spend in world football and the highest in a single Premier League campaign.
A number of sides are understood to have raised concerns over the west London club’s spending, but UEFA are set to make changes to rules which have allowed Chelsea to invest huge sums.
Chelsea have handed recent signings long-term contracts with Mykhaylo Mudryk having penned the longest contract in Premier League history after signing an eight-and-a-half-year deal at Stamford Bridge.
Benoit Badiashile, Wesley Fofana and David Datro Fofana have also signed long deals, with Chelsea having used amortisation – the process of gradually writing off the initial cost of an asset – to remain within the rules of FFP.
Using Mudryk as an example, his £88m fee would be recorded as £10.35m per year across the length of his deal for FFP accounts. Had the winger been handed a four-year contract, the figures would be calculated at £22m per year.
However, the Times are reporting that UEFA are set to close this loophole and impose a maximum contract length of five years.
The changes will not impact Chelsea’s recent signings, but further deals will be subject to the new rules and could come into place before the summer window. UEFA believe the changes will prevent clubs from getting into financial trouble ‘further down the line’.
