According to former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, Chelsea owner Todd Boehly may face major issues in the future as a result of his strategy of locking down the club’s new acquisitions to eight-year contracts.
The Blues have been the Premier League’s top spenders by far over the last two transfer windows, with Boehly spending roughly £323 million on new players in January alone.
Chelsea’s Benoit Badiashile, Mykhaylo Mudryk, and Enzo Fernandez all signed eight-year contracts, which is thought to be an amortisation strategy by the west Londoners to avoid Financial Fair Play limitations by spreading costs over a longer period of time..
Carragher believes that, while credit should be given to Boehly for his initiative, he may find it difficult to unload some players if they fail to perform at Stamford Bridge, and Chelsea may face a number of issues if their stars demand bigger wages in the near future.
“If Todd Boehly and Chelsea have found a way around the laws, without breaking them, by placing players on eight- or nine-year contracts, I’ll wish them success,” Carragher remarked on The Overlap Live Fan Debate, co-hosted by Sky Bet.
“If he has found a method to defeat the system, to go out and spend this money without infringing any FFP laws, then he’s ahead of the game..
But there are so many smart people in football, and I can’t imagine he, who has just recently entered the English game, has discovered a solution that no one else has.
What’s next for Chelsea, signing players to eight-year contracts? How do you get rid of them after a few seasons if they don’t perform well? Or, if they succeed, they will look at the market and want more money and another contract.”
It remains to be seen whether Boehly’s unconventional tactic will come back to haunt him in future seasons, though the 49-year-old has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is not hesitant to dig deep into his pockets since taking over at Chelsea..
The club broke the British transfer record when it signed Fernandez from Benfica last month, and it has also been suggested that Mason Mount and Reece James might follow Chelsea’s new arrivals in signing eight-year contracts in the near future.
Their aggressive spending style, however, has not gone over well in some quarters, with many rival clubs reacting to Chelsea’s triumphs in recent transfer windows with “jealousy, hatred, adoration, and confusion,” according to The Athletic. Graeme Souness has attacked Boehly, claiming that he is not being attentive enough in his recruitment due to a lack of information about the genuine value of the players he has recruited..
“When it comes to Fernandez, Chelsea have paid a premium on top of a premium,” Souness wrote for the Daily Mail. “A premium because the Premier League has called. Chelsea commands a premium. A premium since they need this talent right away.
“Boehly is the latest super-rich businessman to learn the hard way about our game and have his pants pulled down when it comes to transfer negotiations, by not knowing the value of the players he is buying.
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