Within FFP rules, but Chelsea take huge gamble

LONDON : Chelsea's massive outlay on eight new players in January may not breach Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules but it represents a huge gamble, according to a leading football business expert.

The Premier League club crowned a month of squad-strengthening by smashing the British transfer record to sign Argentina's World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez from Benfica on an eight-and-a-half year contract.

Paying 106.8 million pounds ($131 million) to trigger Fernandez's release clause, Chelsea's spending in the mid-season window hit nearly 300 million pounds - more than the combined totals of all clubs in Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1.

Since last May's takeover by an investment group led by American Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, Chelsea have spent more than 500 million pounds on players - a spree that has called into question the effectiveness of FFP.

"It's right to ask the question. How on earth can a club have spent something like 486 million across two transfer windows and still be compliant?," sports business expert Rob Wilson, head of Finance, Accounting & Business Systems at Sheffield Hallam University, told Reuters.

"The reality is they've done two things. One is entirely permissible under regulations, which is called amortization of contracts. You amortize the contract over a number of years so it makes it much more affordable.

"The contract length, that's the cheeky way of not circumventing the regulations but using them to your advantage. Signing over eight and a half years reduces the contract value per year to a much smaller figure to stay within FFP.

"The risk is, to use a poker analogy, is what Chelsea have done over the last two transfer windows is go all in and hope it pays off through improved sporting