Chelsea owners and board

[Ham]

8 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

In initial outlay, maybe. Even then, we don't know how these huge transfer fees are being paid and serviced. 

But isn't the exact point of that transfer fee spending to spend less overall and over time? Like a few others I'm not convinced the theory works out in practice given your signings either perform and demand raises or fail and sit on above market rate wages for years, but I respect the theory.

Another theory I'd expect most here hold true is the people who are the very best at things tend to ask for a receive the highest wages for doing those things (although again, this does not always work out in practice, in football or anything else!). No matter what fees we pay other clubs, drastically reducing what we pay players is going to have a significant impact on the quality of player we attract and hold on to, and inevitably how competitive we are. I really don't see how anyone can argue against that.

It's a quote that fits with the seeming Brighton/RB Leipzig/feeder club model fascination. These clubs perform brilliantly relative to their status/legacy/finances and regularly uncover and profit from players, but they are not competitive. They are not even close to what we were in the latter Abramovich years, a rung down from elite but always in the mix for a trophy, nevermind what we were before then.

 

The players salaries are said to be heavily incentivised. 

Judging by the calibre of player that has chosen us over others, I'd imagine that those incentives are attainable and lucrative. 

We'll never know the details of Enzo's contract but regardless of results I'd imagine there's something in there for performance. 

Enzo, Caicedo etc must have had better base salary offers elsewhere but seemed to be influenced by "the project". 

[ROTG]

1 hour ago, Mark Kelly said:

Clearlake have offloaded all the high earners and brought in younger , hungrier players on lower wages and the FT have only just realised.

Unfortunately the word hungrier is being bounded about with little substance and unfortunately cannot be proved.

Who knows how the squad would have performed last  season, say if Poch was appointed after TT rather than a nobody coach his coaching staff and how the board would have reacted in January if the club were in the top four and on course for CL football... It's all history.

What is apparent under the new ownership model, every player has a price especially those who are pure profit.

Let's see who gets itchy feet at the end of the season, should there be no European football again and how the ownership reacts.

[thevelourfog]

@Sciatika and @Ham, it would be fascinating to know what terms players like Fernández and Nkunku are on. I'm dubious of reports Fernández in particular is on the high wages he is, because I can't see a) how we'd afford his fee along with a high starting wage or b) that any club signing him in January 2023 would need to offer him 5 times what he was reportedly on at Benfica (itself likely a sizeable increase from what he'd been earning just 6 months earlier) to get him. We will never know, though.

I'm as dubious about anything this ownership group says in public and think we should all be. First we had Eghbali talking about how poorly we were run from a revenue perspective and how much better Clearlake would be at that (still no front of shirt sponsor as of 21/09/2023, you couldn't make it up), and just a year later Feliciano is talking less about bringing more money in and instead cutting costs. I think they'd do well to just shut up, tbh.

[Sciatika]

I should have qualified. As @Ham says, players are supposed to be heavily incentivised. Spotrac includes all potential payments. So for instance, their transfer costs are always higher than anyone else's because they include agent fees and other additional transfer costs. Same with wages. So the amount quoted actually paid to Enzo is probably much less.

[Ham]

37 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

@Sciatika and @Ham, it would be fascinating to know what terms players like Fernández and Nkunku are on. I'm dubious of reports Fernández in particular is on the high wages he is, because I can't see a) how we'd afford his fee along with a high starting wage or b) that any club signing him in January 2023 would need to offer him 5 times what he was reportedly on at Benfica (itself likely a sizeable increase from what he'd been earning just 6 months earlier) to get him. We will never know, though.

I'm as dubious about anything this ownership group says in public and think we should all be. First we had Eghbali talking about how poorly we were run from a revenue perspective and how much better Clearlake would be at that (still no front of shirt sponsor as of 21/09/2023, you couldn't make it up), and just a year later Feliciano is talking less about bringing more money in and instead cutting costs. I think they'd do well to just shut up, tbh.

Maybe they're looking at increasing income AND cutting costs? Seems sensible.   There's talk of 20 new business partners in the mix. City had more than double the number of sponsors when we were taken over. It would  appear that the City model is what we're aiming for.

Also, and in fairness, the club had a very lucrative shirt sponsorship with a betting company which was binned because of the negative backlash.  The majority of PL teams currently have betting sponsorship and so they couldn't have realistically been expected to foresee that reaction. 

Poor results on the pitch (RA players prior to the takeover and TBSD recruits since) have hamstrung our search for tier 1 partners and so I'd imagine the club are waiting until we possibly climb the table to make us a more attractive proposition. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[thevelourfog]

13 minutes ago, Ham said:

Maybe they're looking at increasing income AND cutting costs? Seems sensible. 

A few things in your reply that we both know we see differently and no point going over again so hope it's okay I'm focusing on this, because I think this is actually an interesting dilemma and the most important issue one we're facing.

Why does this seem sensible? For a football club, as opposed to a business? 

For a business, the point of increased income is ... Just the increased income, so it is of course also sensible to spend less.

For a football club, the point of increased income is to have more money to spend in order to succeed.

We have to live in the real world, I get that. It is especially hard, an adjustment, when the previous owner's motivations meant we got to live in a dream world for nearly two decades. But that is the exact point I am making. Cutting costs and looking to build a "100 point team" (I'll not make the obvious Championship joke!) are diametrically opposed. I'm sure footballing success is high up the agenda, but I don't think it's number one with number two a good way down the list any more.

 

[Mark Kelly]

40 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

A few things in your reply that we both know we see differently and no point going over again so hope it's okay I'm focusing on this, because I think this is actually an interesting dilemma and the most important issue one we're facing.

Why does this seem sensible? For a football club, as opposed to a business? 

For a business, the point of increased income is ... Just the increased income, so it is of course also sensible to spend less.

For a football club, the point of increased income is to have more money to spend in order to succeed.

We have to live in the real world, I get that. It is especially hard, an adjustment, when the previous owner's motivations meant we got to live in a dream world for nearly two decades. But that is the exact point I am making. Cutting costs and looking to build a "100 point team" (I'll not make the obvious Championship joke!) are diametrically opposed. I'm sure footballing success is high up the agenda, but I don't think it's number one with number two a good way down the list any more.

 

It's definitely 100 points across three seasons I'm sure of it. 

[thevelourfog]

34 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

It's definitely 100 points across three seasons I'm sure of it. 

I didn't want to make the Championship joke because I'd have no confidence of us pissing that league tbh!

[Dwmh]

2 hours ago, Sciatika said:

Not disagreeing in principle, but I think we have been reducing the wages overall, but we have not abandoned paying high wages to the best players. According to Spotrac, Enzo earns £15.4m pa, James £13m, Nkunku £10m. However, we have been reducing the overall wage bill by offloading expensive older players like Ziyech, Kante, Kova, as well as players who give us more in transfer fee income than they do on the field like Havertz and, hopefully, those that give us nothing at all like Lukaku and Sarr. We have been replacing them with younger ones with less experience who accept lower individual terms. If they are successful, I would expect them to agitate for increases, but the overall wage bill has to be kept under control so we may choose to sell instead. TBH, our problem is not going to be successful players.  

So the actual replacement of known players with unknown players is a huge cost.  Think how much cheaper Silva is than Fofana + Badashiel + Diasisi of whom we only ever get to play one at a time even when fit. 

The real question is whether Clearlake can stop the churn.  8 years of just buying 2 players a season sounds perfect and will justify the financial plan?
Can the medics, coaches and trigger happy Clearlake do that?
I think no.

 

2 hours ago, Ham said:

The players salaries are said to be heavily incentivised. 

Judging by the calibre of player that has chosen us over others, I'd imagine that those incentives are attainable and lucrative. 

We'll never know the details of Enzo's contract but regardless of results I'd imagine there's something in there for performance. 

 

Well if they are incentivised by player performance or goals or (most likely) starts and appearances that can cause a lot of issues.  There are far more than 12 big names in the squad now, so someone is going to be very pissed off.

Or if they are incentivised by team performance they are ALL going to be pissed off unless something changes very very quickly.
I don't think Clearlake realise just what damage to performance and to Finances an unmotivated footballer does in a team, let alone 5 or 10 or them.  
(Funny you'd think that that is the one thing they might have learnt in the first year)

2 hours ago, Ham said:

Enzo, Caicedo etc must have had better base salary offers elsewhere but seemed to be influenced by "the project". 

Really?  The 2020 CL win, but the project?  The project is Enzo, Caicedo and er... Mudryk.
Enzo was the 21 yo pivot to the WC winning team a few weeks before he came here.
Caicedo seems to be wanted by everyone including Liverpool (who very nearly were a 100 point team recently).
They came for the wages - perhaps the wage incentives which is going to bring things to a head rapidly.
 

1 hour ago, Sciatika said:

I should have qualified. As @Ham says, players are supposed to be heavily incentivised. Spotrac includes all potential payments. So for instance, their transfer costs are always higher than anyone else's because they include agent fees and other additional transfer costs. Same with wages. So the amount quoted actually paid to Enzo is probably much less.

Spotrac and anyone else's set of numbers are all guess work.  I'm all for a bit of guess work so long as one openly acknowledges the fallibility.
Published accounts don't really offer that much scope to confirm transfers to within $50m or so, and only club total wages are given.  Moreover the accounts detail numbers for the previous financial year with a delay, but most speculation about club finances is about future years.  As for the press guesses of numbers it is either rumours from agents whose job it is to lie, or the first guess gets repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact.



 

9 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

It's definitely 100 points across three seasons I'm sure of it. 

Yup, leaving Enzo playing in Div 2 (or worse if they hit us for Football League FFP)

[Ham]

1 hour ago, thevelourfog said:

A few things in your reply that we both know we see differently and no point going over again so hope it's okay I'm focusing on this, because I think this is actually an interesting dilemma and the most important issue one we're facing.

Why does this seem sensible? For a football club, as opposed to a business? 

For a business, the point of increased income is ... Just the increased income, so it is of course also sensible to spend less.

For a football club, the point of increased income is to have more money to spend in order to succeed.

We have to live in the real world, I get that. It is especially hard, an adjustment, when the previous owner's motivations meant we got to live in a dream world for nearly two decades. But that is the exact point I am making. Cutting costs and looking to build a "100 point team" (I'll not make the obvious Championship joke!) are diametrically opposed. I'm sure footballing success is high up the agenda, but I don't think it's number one with number two a good way down the list any more.

 

With no European football income and the resulting reduction in our image rights, cost cutting in the here and now makes sense.  

 

[xceleryx]

40 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Well if they are incentivised by player performance or goals or (most likely) starts and appearances that can cause a lot of issues.  There are far more than 12 big names in the squad now, so someone is going to be very pissed off.

Or if they are incentivised by team performance they are ALL going to be pissed off unless something changes very very quickly.
I don't think Clearlake realise just what damage to performance and to Finances an unmotivated footballer does in a team, let alone 5 or 10 or them.  
(Funny you'd think that that is the one thing they might have learnt in the first year)

Ben Foster revealed his contract at WBA on his podcast a little bit ago and all the bonus and incentive stuff attached, was quite interesting to hear how some of this stuff works.

Appearance fees that would vary depending on how many minutes were played in any particular match. There was bonuses for points picked up per match - so a draw would earn x and a win y amounts. From memory there was also bonuses that would be triggered by the team reaching a set amount of points for the season, etc.

He also spoke about how contracts weren't really discussed between the players, so others would't necessarily know the in's and out's of each others deals.

You may not agree, but incentive based contracts is a good direction to head down with where we're at. Was absolutely criminal that players like Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Barkley, Hudson-Odoi, so many others were being paid the guaranteed money they were. This puts the onus on the players and team to do well, by doing so they'll be financially rewarded for their work. With the way wages are now days, and the cost of players only continuing to increase, guaranteed money can be quite detrimental in various ways. 

Edited September 21, 2023 by xceleryx
corrected spelling

[Dwmh]

30 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

You may not agree, but incentive based contracts is a good direction to head down with where we're at. Was absolutely criminal that players like Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Barkley, Hudson-Odoi, so many others were being paid the guaranteed money they were. This puts the onus on the players and team to do well, by doing so they'll be financially rewarded for their work. With the way wages are now days, and the cost of players only continuing to increase, guaranteed money can be quite detrimental in various ways. 

Well as Ben Foster explains, no one really knows how criminal the money Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Barkley and CHO were on.  But I take your point.  For me the challenge of how to exend the contract of a 20-22 yo who has not yet proved his worth has always been a major cost for the Academy which is frequently ignored.
But imagine now Colwill being offered an 8 year contract?  How much?  
Barkley was just an example of an extremely bad transfer period (which I argue was the year we handed control to Conte).  Pulisic and his batch (Werner, Ziyech, Havertz etc) did at least all play a lot of games for Chelsea (and won some pot) so can be said to have been much more value.

Certainly I have no problem with incentive based contracts per se.  They make sense, and you  could argue that a club should only sign players willing to accept a performance based contract.

But do they solve the problem of 8 year contracts for long term players?  Not really.
Sanchez may well be on an incentive based contract which he will be very happy with this season.  But if Kepa comes back and claims his place what then?  Sanchez will want out pdq.
Is Mudryk on an incentive based contract?  Is that the best way to boost any  confidence issues?

(By contrast they are great for older players and short term contracts - I hope Felix was on an incentive pay deal here, ditto Silva now who plays like he is incentivised to play every minute of every game.)

Btw I had a teacher who played part time for Enfield in 1970s non league (though they got to FAC round 3 and met...   ... Blyth Spartans and lost).
They were on win bonuses even then for those that got selected (plus those who'd been injured while playing) and he gave the impression it made quite a difference.
Incentive based contracts are not new.

[Max Fowler]

I think I read somewhere that we were making a massive loss under Abramovich that he was essentially just writing off each week and month and it would be understandable that was no longer sustainable. 

IMO - part of the problem here is the board has sort of been more transparent than Roman ever was but at the same time leaves us guessing. When Todd goes into now infamous interviews explaining why Tuchel got fired and his plans for the English game, at the time many on here praised him but in hindsight it looks like a poor PR move, same with his pronouncements of us beating Madrid 3-0. 

Todd told us "When you take over any business, You have to make sure you are aligned with the people in the business, and Tuchel is obviously extremely talented and obviously someone who had great success with Chelsea,' 

'Our vision for the club was to find a manager who really wanted to collaborate with us, a coach who really wanted to collaborate. 

'There are a lot of walls to break down at Chelsea. Before, the first team and academy didn't really share data, didn't share information about where the top players were coming from. Our goal is to bring a team together; all of that needs to be a well-oiled machine.

Now our academy is seemingly being used as a cash cow, Chelsea fans are constantly wondering if the expectations of "collaboration" are hurting our team on the pitch, and with this latest leak from the owner we are now going to turn into the new Brighton?

If we got money from Saudis, Qataris etc. it would maybe be feasible that they would bankroll us to the top again like under Roman, Man City etc., where their cash supply is endless and the allure of sports washing benefits both them and our club. 

We are being led by a consortium who were contractually obliged to invest £1.75 billion - how much of that have we already spent and how much is now going to be generated from the merry go round of incomings and outgoings?

If we are going to have to wait for a new stadium to generate serious revenue like Arsenal, it would be great to know that from Todd instead of hearing his plans for a north vs south game. Or else a total lack of transparency (like Roman) might be more healthy.

[Max Fowler]

Good podcast from Athletic. We lost 900 grand a week under Roman.

This is not sustainable under the new owners. No wonder things are changing.
https://theathletic.com/podcast/144-athletic-football-podcast/?episode=654

[Dwmh]

37 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Now our academy is seemingly being used as a cash cow, Chelsea fans are constantly wondering if the expectations of "collaboration" are hurting our team on the pitch, and with this latest leak from the owner we are now going to turn into the new Brighton?

So anyone that recalls 2012/13 when we bought Hazard, Oscar, Courtois, Lukaku, Salah, KdB, Willian and others will remember when we were the Brighton of the day - actually we have been doing that for 2 decades.

Yes the Academy has become aligned to A the needs of the youngsters and B financial commonsense.
Players care most of all about becoming PL or Championship level players at any club on a contract close to what they could best get.
That is what the likes of Lewis Hall or Lamptey are doing now.
The club wants to maximise value or revenue by rolling over contracts when they can be at sensible levels given the remaining doubts about how good the player will be, or selling them at a time when there is still value in the existing contract.
The club does not want to be a hostage in negotiation because Someone has decided a CHO or an RLC must stay and become a first team player for Chelsea at any cost.

That is all much more sensible.  But it started 3 or 4 years ago not 12 months ago.   Tomori, Tammy, Guehi Lamptey etc

20 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Good podcast from Athletic. We lost 900 grand a week under Roman.

This is not sustainable under the new owners. No wonder things are changing.
https://theathletic.com/podcast/144-athletic-football-podcast/?episode=654

£900 grand a week Wow - that that that is almost £50m a year.
Come on that it peanuts for a top 4 club.
Must be 5 times that now.

[Mark Kelly]

3 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

 

£900 grand a week Wow - that that that is almost £50m a year.
Come on that it peanuts for a top 4 club.
Must be 5 times that now.

Cough , no shirt sponsor , cough £50m , cough. 

[thevelourfog]

3 hours ago, Ham said:

With no European football income and the resulting reduction in our image rights, cost cutting in the here and now makes sense. 

Or ... dooms us to no European football for much longer. 

[Max Fowler]

Oh, here's the unblocked Athletic article on how the new owners are putting prices up on pretty much everything at Stamford Bridge

https://archive.ph/Tk0uK

[Chelsea_Matt]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/24056612/chelsea-boehly-ares-investment-terry/
 

Get ready for more Brazilian child wingers @Mark Kelly🤣🤣🤣

[Max Fowler]

so looks like the owners still have their eyes on the top prize

 

 

[JaneB]

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

so looks like the owners still have their eyes on the top prize

 

 

Is this a joke?  They can't even put a team together who know how to score goals and we are currently 14th in the table with 5 points.  

As for incentifying players which has been discussed on this thread, why would you need an incentive to play to the best of your ability to try and win football matches?  I thought they were already being paid obscene amounts of money for doing just that.

 

 

 

 

[Bison]

Boehly, Clearlake and the two jokers acting as co-sporting directors should really stop doing interviews or making comments to the press and the in-house media team. 

[chiswickblue]

Maybe they think it will take more than one season to create a 100 point team.

[thevelourfog]

3 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Oh, here's the unblocked Athletic article on how the new owners are putting prices up on pretty much everything at Stamford Bridge

https://archive.ph/Tk0uK

"A contract with Gravity Media worth around £500,000 annually to edit video highlights of first-team matches for the official club app has also been terminated, and production brought in-house."

Clever Clearlake, save half a million on highlights by ... just never having anything good that a supporter would want to watch again happen in any of our matches 😂

[thevelourfog]

12 minutes ago, chiswickblue said:

Maybe they think it will take more than one season to create a 100 point team.

Well ... Duh. I don't think anyone thinks otherwise. It's just that some will look at the last 18 months and quite reasonably doubt they could manage it in 100 seasons.