Rio Ferdinand has reacted with huge admiration after hearing Chelsea’s current situation with PSR.
Chelsea are always a hot topic for discussion when it comes to the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), which place limits on clubs’ financial losses each year. A big reason why is the Blues owners have been extremely ambitious with their spending since completing a takeover three years ago.
According to The Athletic, Chelsea are the safest of all the 20 Premier League clubs when it comes to avoiding PSR breaches for the 2024/25 season.
Chelsea’s accounting team have worked so intelligently to ensure the club avoids breaking any PSR regulations.
Rio Ferdinand applauds Chelsea for thinking outside the box to meet PSR rules
During a conversation on Rio Ferdinand Presents, former Premier League star Rio Ferdinand was left stunned after hearing Chelsea are in such a strong PSR situation. He said: “I’ve got a list of the healthiest PSR clubs. Chelsea? How the hell are Chelsea top, please, with £300m?”
Kieran Maguire, who’s a football financial expert, then explained how the Blues are complying with the rules. He said: “In terms of Chelsea, having this £300m – £200m of that comes from selling the women’s team to themselves, and another £70m, or £60-£70m, comes from selling a couple of car parks to themselves as well. Without that, Chelsea would be in a really tricky position.”
“It’s within the Premier League rules. The Premier League had the opportunity to close that loophole last week and the club owners decided they quite liked it as it seems a ‘get out of jail free’ card that Chelsea have used and perhaps other clubs might say we want to use that as well.”
Later on, Ferdinand delivered a glowing verdict on the Blues for how they’ve handled the PSR rules. He stated: “You’ve got to give it to Chelsea, yeah. Their owners have come in, they’ve created a new model right, everyone laughed at them, everyone ridiculed them, said, ‘There’s no chance they’re going to finish anywhere, if you were a player you’d never sign for Chelsea’.
“They’ve swept up some of the best talents in the world…. They’ve gone full throttle with it and backed themselves, and then found a few loopholes, that some people are turning their nose up at, but if there’s a loophole there to be had, it’s there to be had, and they’ve exploited that and that’s the Premier League’s doing, not theirs.”
Chelsea’s rivals could look to copy them by selling their own women’s team to themselves to stay on the right side of PSR.
Like mentioned above, the Blues have stayed within the rules by finding a loophole that remains open.
Will the Chelsea spending continue this summer?
Enzo Maresca’s side have already recruited Liam Delap in June by signing the striker for £30m from Ipswich Town.
The transfer rumour mill suggests that the Blues are not done there, though.
Maresca has hinted Chelsea will sign another winger after they decided not to bring Jadon Sancho back to the club on a permanent basis.
Chelsea are expected to bid again for Jamie Gittens as they focus on signing the Borussia Dortmund wide man. Even though the Blues squad has cost a lot to assemble, there are still a couple of holes that need plugging to elevate the team to the next level.
