UEFA are set to close the loophole which has enabled Chelsea to spread the cost of their record transfer spending over up to eight years after receiving complaints from other Premier League clubs.
Sportsmail revealed last Saturday that a number of Chelsea's top-flight rivals had accused the club of attempting to cheat FFP regulations by using amortisation to spread the cost of Mykhailo Mudryk's £88million fee over eight years for accounting purposes.
FIFA statutes already set five years as the maximum contract length, but exceptions are permitted, which Chelsea have utilised to defer much of the cost of the record £460million transfer spending since Todd Boehly bought the club last July.
In addition to Mudryk, who signed the longest contract in the history of the Premier League, French defender Benoit Badiashile and Ivory Coast striker David Datro Fofana both signed six-and-a-half year deals this month after the arrivals of Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella on seven and six-year contracts respectively last summer.
Having been alerted to what appears to be a clear trend by other clubs UEFA have reacted, and are planning to set a five-year limit for the time over which a player's transfer fee can be spread from next summer.
The rule change will not affect Chelsea's recent signings, but is likely to limit their room for manouvre in subsequent transfer windows.
Chelsea's lavish spending over the summer and January transfer windows has shattered records, with the figure of £460m already the highest in the world and the highest in Premier League history, and expected to rise further.
The previous record was set by Manchester City, who spent £328.1 million in 2017-18.
Richyrichcfc93765
471
On behalf of all Chelsea fans I offer this to all the clubs that are complaining
sprinter0012
392
But the truth is that they came too late, people think they are smart and called Mr boehly a fool for spending careless even some foolish Chelsea fans also called him names, but he has shown Europe nothing is impossible... And for haters the rules will begin next summer and we will sign our main targets this window and sign little of our targets in summer after we sale some players and reduce our wage bill.. In fact we're blessed to have boehly and potter is the luckiest manager to order for something and get it... Our future is safe blues
Munbdiuyz
230
There was a time Chelsea wasn't permitted to transact any business, other clubs did, now give Chelsea enough time to do what it wants in the market
Jutiknoprt
166
Chelsea will remain chelsea
Bobbylarge
116
As e day pain them e day sweet us, E day sweet us omo e day pain them
mukkynoobz
25
Bunch of haters. The rule was there for everyone else to take advantage of but they didn’t cuz they didn’t have the balls. Chelsea did not break any rules, did not inflate any assets or use third parties to front sponsorship deals for the club to bypass the limitations on owners investments. Our spending has nothing to do with those whining clubs and if we broke any rules we’d have to face the music anyway, but they opening their stupid mouths and making complaints. Nothing has been done about the endless spending by PSG who are actually breaking rules but other clubs and their jealous fans are trying to change rules that allow anyone to do the same thing we are doing. We knw the rules are already gonna get stiffer in the summer with new FFP, which is y we are going big now and buying young so we don’t have to spend 10 yrs building a squad to challenge City that have already spent more than a billion pounds under Pep.