‘They have to balance the books’ is common football parlance these days, usually used with very little knowledge of the actual clubs financial situation. Basically, we assume that selling clubs are book-balancing clubs.
We don’t do that really knows what’s going on. Financial reports take years to appear which means we are always behind the eight ball and really only the club bean counters have a true picture of how silly they are or whatnot.
However, we can guess and do. At the moment, if you’re a Serie A club, you’re frantically balancing books, like most La Liga teams, with Barcelona’s boss among them. And we don’t need a financial expert to tell us that the Chelsea accountants have a heavy workload right now.
The Blues have until June 30 to sell players and make up for some of the ridiculous money spent in the 2022/23 season. Unfortunately for Chelsea, most of the major European leagues are not open for transfer business until the start of July, but luckily for Chelsea, Saudi Arabia, much to the dismay of their understandably skeptical rivals.
We don’t know how much Chelsea will have to earn before the deadline, but it must be a fair blow given their apparent willingness to sell their best players to Premier League rivals. Anyway, the clock is ticking and we’ve looked at how much they’ve made from player sales this season so far and what they could stand to gain through further departures.
The ‘book value’ of each player is their residual amortized value. For example, Timo Werner joined Chelsea for £45 million on a five-year contract and left after two years, meaning he had £27 million in residual amortized value. In order to record a profit through a player sale, clubs must sell them for more than this residual amortized value. So while buying Werner for £45m and selling him two years later for £25m sounds awful, it went down in the books as just a £2m loss.
Most of the players listed are either fully amortized or, in the case of the Cobham candidates, cost nothing to acquire. Then their book values will be listed as ‘n/a’ and their sales will count as net profit.
We start with the already sold players…
Tim Werner
Book value: £27m
Sale price: £25m
Profit/loss: -2 million
He probably would have been top scorer if he had stayed, after getting 16 for RB Leipzig and considering how awful Chelsea’s other forwards were, but we’d seen enough of Werner to know he was never going to make the 20 -plus-goal-a -season striker that the Blues needed.
Emerson Palmieri
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £13m
Profit/loss: +£13m
A good deal for everyone.
Jorginho
Book value: £10m
Sale price: £12m
Profit/loss: +£2m
Made a £2m profit in January on a player they would have lost for nothing this summer. Smart.
Billy Gilmour
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £9m
Profit/loss: +£9m
Knap initially played for Brighton but looked more settled towards the end of the season under Roberto De Zerbi. Chelsea may regret letting him go for just £9m, but cash is king.
Michy Batshuayi
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £3m
Profit/loss: +£3m
No book value when he joined Chelsea in 2016 for £33m and signed a five-year contract. Got as much as they could for a player they would have happily seen sacked for squat.
Romelu Lukaku
Book value: £58m
Reports claim that he was included in this unpleasantness five for £100m. offer from Saudi but he has rejected them. Chelsea will do very well to get anywhere near £58m for him.
Marc Cucurella
Book value: £45m
Current Newcastle sporting director Dan Ashworth signed Cucurella for Brighton from Getafe and reports suggest he is interested again. However, £45m seems unlikely as the Spaniard forgot how to play football for 12 months.
Kai Havertz
Book value: £24.8m
Chelsea want close to the £71m they paid for him in the summer of 2020 and Arsenal are creeping closer to that price tag. Regardless of the final price, this would be a big FFP win.
Kalidou Koulibaly
Book value: £24m
Offer Koulibaly to one of the four or five Premier League clubs previously interested in him for £24m without his less-than-convincing season for Chelsea and they’d bite your hand off. As it is, Saudi is the only option.
Referee Ziyech
Book value: £13.2m
Paperwork issues prevented Ziyech from moving to PSG in a loan-to-buy transfer in January, which would have been ideal, but it now looks like he is heading to Saudi anyway.
Christian Pulisic
Book value: £11m
Newcastle and Manchester United were interested for a while, but it has all gone quiet. Chances are he wants to move elsewhere in Europe, so probably won’t be sold before the deadline. Useless.
Edward Mendy
Book value: £8.8m
Saudi-bound.
Matthew Kovacic
Book value: £8m
Manchester City have been in talks with the Croatian international for a while and a report on Tuesday claimed the champions have offered £25m, which is a frustratingly low price for a player of his quality in his prime, but needs must. Urgh.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Book value: £6m
Surely Chelsea can persuade the Saudis to pay £10m for him? He’s really good guys, honestly.
Armando Broja
Book value: n/a
Brighton are reportedly interested in Broja as a potential makeweight in the Moises Caicedo deal, but Mauricio Pochettino wants to see him in pre-season. It’s going to be a bit of a problem overall for Poch, who has to decide who can be sold before the deadline without actually seeing them in action.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Book value: n/a
Reports suggest he wants to stay at Stamford Bridge but will be forced out. 25 million £ of PURE PROFIT would be tasty. Milan have been in talks while other Serie A teams are circling.
Mason Mount
Book value: n/a
Manchester United were probably laughed off the phone afterwards a bid of 40 million pounds, with Chelsea wanting at least £70m. That was a while ago and the uncertainty of what Ten Hag will use is causing more than a little anxiety at Old Trafford as the takeover process rumbles on. There are plenty of other academy graduates Chelsea could sell to keep their best.
Conor Gallagher
Book value: n/a
“I’m a Chelsea player and I love Chelsea,” Gallagher said on England duty, and you can tell he really does. Almost certainly more than the soulless b*stars in charge of Chelsea love him. A £40m bid from Newcastle or Spurs would probably be enough.
Callum Hudson-Odoi
Book value: n/a
Two Saudi clubs approached Hudson-Odoi on Tuesday and this one makes us feel sicker than most. He is 22 years old FFS and had the world at his feet three years ago when Bayern Munich bid £50m for him. Don’t do it, Callum.
Baba Rahman
Book value: n/a
Here he is, Chelsea’s second longest-tenured player, making 23 appearances for them in eight years. Transfermarkt currently values him at £1m. They would take £1.
Cesar Azpilicueta
Book value: n/a
Chelsea have very little experience and you could understand why Pochettino wants to keep the club captain. He probably wouldn’t get that much for him anyway.
Trevoh Chalobah
Book value: n/a
– It is clear that I am still a Chelsea player, but you never know. I like it here in Italy, the weather is good, the people are nice, the food is good, I am enjoying my time here,” said Chalobah while on holiday in Italy, easily seen following fellow academy graduates Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham to Serie A. £25m would do it.