Chelsea has spent more than 650 million USD on players since the beginning of the 2022-2023 season, a move that has turned heads the wrong way within the soccer world.  

Since the takeover of American businessman Todd Boehly, Chelsea has upped their spending substantially, spending $650 million since the season began in August. Chelsea squads have historically placed Top 4 almost every season, but are currently sitting mid-table at 10th. This is due in part to the fact that 9 of their players are injured; 7 of them being regular starters and the other two solid players coming off the bench. Boehly’s solution to this problem: spend as much money as possible to fill the gaps. 

Since June 10th, 2022 when the Summer transfer window first opened, Chelsea has made 14 permanent signings and two loan signings. Some of the most notable (and expensive) signings were Ukrainian prospect Mykhaylo Mudryk for $76 million plus an estimated $35 million in add-ons, Portuguese talent Joao Felix on loan for $14 million, and Argentinian star boy Enzo Fernandez for a whopping $132 million, eclipsing the previous Premier League record transfer of $123 million for Jack Grealish’s move to Manchester City in 2022. 

In January alone, Chelsea spent around $400 million on transfers; which is more than all clubs in the Spanish, Italian, French, and German spent combined. So how is this allowed? Shouldn’t there be rules in place against spending excessive amounts of money on transfers?

Well, there are. Kind of. The Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules were set in place in the 2011/2012 season. Their purpose was to reduce excessive spending within the European leagues by limiting the amount of spending compared to revenues. In other words, it worked to ensure that there wasn’t a humungous disparity of spending between teams so that “bigger” teams wouldn’t have as much of an advantage compared to the smaller ones. 

However, in recent years, teams have found loopholes to avoid the limits set in place; one of these clubs being Chelsea. The FFP rules divide a player’s transfer fee by the length of the contract, so in order to avoid breaching the fair play rules, Chelsea has been handing out 8, 9, and 10-year contracts so they narrowly avoid being struck down. 

Recently, however, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has announced that the rules in place will be changing soon. They will be setting the maximum singular contract length at 5 years in order to avoid the extensive contracts being given out. 

While Chelsea is staying within the guidelines, players, coaches, and fans alike have had negative things to say about their actions and about the fair play rules in general.

“I personally feel that much more has to be done to limit spending, especially after teams like FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid weren’t allowed to make some signings or register players due to FFP–but Chelsea was able to outspend all the top 5 leagues in Europe combined,” Junior soccer fan Mark Yonan said. “It’s just ridiculous how they were allowed to spend so much when they are in 10th in the Premier League. The fair play rules are flawed and inconsistent between teams.” 

“The amount of spending that Chelsea is doing feels like something out of a video game,” Junior soccer fan Saif Salman said. “When a club like Chelsea offers to pay that much money for a player, it ruins any smaller club’s chances of getting that player. These days, soccer is all about money.”

Soccer has been constantly changing over the years; evolving with the world around it. This includes inflation rates. If you were to take a player from 2011, they’d cost around 3 times more today than they did back then. While attempts are being made to reduce these inflation levels, soccer will most likely never return to the way it was.