Pundit tells Chelsea to sell three players for £140m if they need to ‘get around’ FFP | OneFootball

Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan thinks Chelsea will be able to “get around” Financial Fair Play rules if they sell three of their players.

The Blues committed around £600m over the last two windows to 17 new players with Graham Potter given the responsibility of gelling the squad together.

That has led to some fans of other teams questioning how Chelsea have spent that much money without breaking some kind of FFP rules.

But, if Chelsea are in danger of breaking any rules, then Jordan thinks they have an easy solution with a number of saleable assets who have come through their youth academy.

Jordan told talkSPORT: “I doubt it, because there was a group of players on their books who likely had no carrying value to be sold, whether that be Mason Mount, Conor Gallagher or Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

“None of those have any carrying value. They’re not valued on Chelsea’s balance sheet as anything.

“I don’t think it’ll be a fire sale, but they’ve got an embarrassment of riches and there’s time to change things up.

“A fire sale means you’re selling things at a discount – they won’t be selling at a discount, they’ll be selling at top money.

“I think they’ll have challenges, but I think it was always priced in that they were going to sell players. Every club sells players and so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be selling players.

“They’ve sold players before and done it very well in previous incarnations and even under Roman Abramovich, they’ve made profits selling young players and two years ago they sold young players to fund the Romelu Lukaku transfer.

“Here’s the thing. They’ve got £274m worth of losses over the last two years, Financial Fair Play runs in three-year cycles and so next year they’ll have to be able to have the ability to reduce that down to £105m.

“They’ll either be factually correct that they’ve got factual adjustments of £120m or something in that order – something significant after the sanctioning and they have to have that.

“If you can allow Aston Villa and Crystal Palace and all of the other Premier League clubs to have allowable adjustments for COVID, you have to allow Chelsea to have them because they were sanctioned.

“That’s not normal business. You can’t say that because Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the British government and forced to sell a UK asset that somehow the lack of revenue that came in for six months cannot then be adjusted back.

“So let’s see if that number brings it back down to a level that’s more inside the range because if it doesn’t – and it’s a matter of fact if it can or it can’t – then Chelsea will be sanctioned.

“One way to get around that is to add to the supplement of allowable adjustments by putting players up for sale.

“If they sell Conor Gallagher who is a £40m footballer, sell Ruben Loftus-Cheek for £40m and Mason Mount who is probably a £60m footballer, they’ve just made £140m worth of profit.

“They’ve spent £600m which they’ve capitalised over eight years on each player and so it’s depreciating at £75m-a-year. There’s your answer.

“It’s practical, pragmatic business. Yes, to do that you’re sacrificing some of your academy stars who fans want to see play – so what? Too bad, this is how it works in the real world.

“Loftus-Cheek has had six years to lay his claim at Chelsea and he hasn’t done it, Gallagher is in and out and is a very good player and we’d love to have him back at Crystal Palace, but is he going to be able to move out some of these top players who Chelsea have brought in to achieve something? Debatable.

“With all of that in mind, there’s no reason to suggest that Boehly can’t achieve it.

“Are you telling me there’s going to be no one wanting to buy Conor Gallagher? Are you telling me that nobody is going to want to buy Ruben Loftus-Cheek?

“Are you telling me that no one is going to want to buy Mason Mount, because if you did say that it would be ridiculous.

“We all know there will be a massive, big market for all three of those players.”