How Chelsea are gaming the system better than anyone – and why they’ll keep winning | FourFourTwo
How Chelsea are gaming the system better than anyone – and why they’ll keep winning | FourFourTwo.
A bit late with this one but a good read nonetheless.
A very interesting look at Chelsea’s decisions during the Financial Fair Play era. It was surprising that the London club wasn’t one of those fined for failing to meet the regulations for FFP. The cases presented, Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne, are definitely good examples of the club “flipping players” as the author, Rory Smith, states.
When you consider talents like Wallace, Tomas Kalas, Thorgan Hazard, Lucas Piazon and others who are currently on-loan from Chelsea you can see the game-plan. If they don’t make it at Chelsea they can certainly be sold on.
If you think about it though, Arsenal has, inadvertently, been the top dog in this kind of movement in the transfer market in recent seasons. Just saying. Considering the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure etc. who Arsene Wenger most likely didn’t plan to sell but got the same type of profit Chelsea are getting then you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Still, the author is certainly mostly concerned with the suddenly rich clubs like Chelsea, PSG and Manchester City as they are the most likely to be affected by FFP.
Manchester City and PSG obviously didn’t care as they were among those fined, and it doesn’t seem as if they have a similar game-plan to Chelsea’s. City has planned to invest in youth but we’ll see how that works.
Still, the piece definitely gives food for though about how those clubs will handle FFP. Prices in the transfer market have become increasingly absurd, and it just may be that other clubs will have figure out similar plans to stay within the regulations.
Always Thinking Football 