UEFA blocks transfer loophole exploited by Chelsea

Soccer’s governing body in Europe is set to change how transfers are paid out in the future. According to The Athletic, UEFA will now cap the amount of years clubs can pay off a transfer fee to five years. Teams in the continent have until Saturday, July 1 to adhere to this new updated law.

UEFA rule change is direct response to Chelsea transfer workings

Under previous rules, transfer fees could be spread out over the duration of a player’s contract with their new club. Premier League side Chelsea took advantage of these old transfer laws multiple times throughout the 2022/23 campaign, which prompted UEFA to make a change.

The Blues signed Wesley Fofana, Benoît Badiashile, Mykhailo Mudryk and Enzo Fernandez all to seven or eight-year contracts. They signed a dozen other players as well. The Ukrainian international’s eight-and-a-half year deal is currently the longest contract in Premier League history.

In total, Chelsea had a net spend during last season’s campaign of nearly $600 million. Despite the rule change, it will not affect these aforementioned deals. UEFA is claiming that the updated law is intended to help clubs from getting into financial issues in the future.

“If other clubs start doing the same with eight-year contracts it will be a mess so we need to protect them,” a source told The Times. “It is simply shifting a problem to the future. Either a club can get stuck with a player on a high salary that they cannot sell, or if they sell him after three or four years they will not realize much profit [in accounting terms] because a lot of his transfer fee has not been amortized.”

Laws for player swap agreements also tweaked

Along with tweaking the transfer rule, UEFA has also addressed possible player swap deals as well. The governing body is enforcing clubs to confirm that they are adhering to requirements under these circumstances. These measures had to be taken in order to stave off teams potentially using player swap deals to inflate profits.

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