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[Celerity]

This message was self-deleted by its author (Celerity) on Tue Jun 27, 2023, 05:08 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[Ponietz]

1. 0-0 vs. Fulham

Paying $131 million for a defensive midfielder makes no sense. Massive contractual obligations for a decade—botching the Ziyech transfer—this doesn’t end well.

The whole thing smells and raises suspicions that nefarious interests are involved. Sorry mate.

[Celerity]

2. some of that is absolute CT bollocks

The whole thing smells and raises suspicions that nefarious interests are involved.

smdh

nefarious interests

Also, Enzo is far more than just a bog standard trad DMF, he is a metronome to set an entire team to, a deep lying playmaker who also has the ability to go forward and join the attack.

Massive contractual obligations for a decade

The yearly amortised cost is much lower in regards to the FFP limitations.

[Ponietz]

3. Bookmarking for when the new Saudi owners take over

[

Link to tweet

[Celerity]

4. laughable, have fun at The Red Cafe or Empire of the Kop or wherever you ply your CT trade

[ornotna]

5. He was good in the World Cup

Hopefully he’s not the new crazy expensive James Rodríguez.

[Ponietz]

6. I see you have new Saudi stakeholders

Sorry to say I saw this coming. What a mess. Good luck

To recap the bare facts of the case, because it is all quite dry and convoluted and also requires an inelegant number of the uses of the word “fund”: Clearlake, the private equity firm that owns Chelsea — alongside the transfer market master strategist Todd Boehly — has received some (it’s not clear how much) investment from the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

The PIF, as previously discussed in this newsletter, recently took control of four teams in the Saudi Pro League, and has set about hiring a glut of aging, slightly faded stars to populate them. Many of its targets, as it turns out, play for Chelsea: N’Golo Kanté, Hakim Ziyech, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and so on.

As it happens, Chelsea has spent colossal sums on players since Clearlake and Boehly took over last year. It now finds itself desperately trying to pare down its bloated, expensive squad, both for practical reasons — the players do not all fit in one changing room — and more pressing economic ones: Chelsea needs its books to balance a little more by the end of the month so the club doesn’t run afoul of various financial regulations put in place by the Premier League and European soccer.
On the surface, then, it is not hard to understand why people might think this Saudi buying of Chelsea players is all just a little too convenient. Somewhere along the line, the people doing the buying and the people doing the selling have interests that are, let’s say, mutually aligned.

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/sports/soccer/transfer-window-signings.html]

[Celerity]

7. lol, they are NOT stakeholders, the Saudis are snapping up players from many clubs and the transfer

fees they are paying us are certainly not huge at all, nothing like what the Chinese were paying years ago before they internally clamped down.

The only 2 players we have sold to the Saudis (I will say so far, as hopefully they take the poison that is Lukaku off our hands, who is arguably the worst transfer in EPL history, a massive mistake by the old Roman regime that I TRULY lost my shit over) who was purchased by Boehly and Co are Koulibaly and Auba. Last summer we paid (stupidly, I had a right proper fit, not on the fee, but in terms as footballing play, I thought he was rinsed, and his style of play was a bad match for the EPL). We paid £33.5m or so for a transfer fee, and the Saudis are buying him for around £20m. We paid 10m quid for Aubameyang, and he is being sold for around £5m. Hardly some massive pile of monies involved there.


you also conveniently left out the next 2 paragraphs, especially the first one



(to address the 2nd paragraph, perception is spin, especially as it is coming from rivals like the bloviating partisan Gary Neville from Man U, who also tossed the toys from the pram last year at our signing players to long term contracts to lower the year over year FFP impact via amortisation)

[Ponietz]

8. Now we learn Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth fund has its hooks in Boehly's ventures

Saudi is a stakeholder but how much it pulls Boehly’s strings is still unclear. Last season’s manic spending episode is too convenient. He may suffer from bipolar disorder or he may be a straw man, but that wasn’t rational.

[Celerity]

9. Non responsive & more CT. Why don't you go worry about an actual Saudi owned team, like Newcastle,

or all the other players the Saudis are buying from other clubs.

The prices for the players we sold to them were all at much lower figures than we paid, and total up to a low sum.

So far its been (assuming all these go through):

Kante £0 (left on a free, as we didn't renew, we paid £32m in 2016, long before the club was sold, and it was a steal, he was the best DMF on the planet for years)

Koulibaly £19.5m (we paid £33m for him last summer)

Ziyech £8.5m (we paid £34m for him 3 years ago, before the clubs was sold)

Mendy £16m (we paid £22m for him) 3 years

-------‐-------------

Total we sold the four for: £44m (versus £121m in transfer fees paid over the years)

£44m is chump change for 4 players today, and all 4 of those players are globally famous, so add star power for the Saudis, at least in reputation.

We are also trying to sell Aubameyang, but will ger little, maybe £4 or £5m. We paid £10m for him last summer, and he was a bust.

The Saudis are not doing massive deals with us, nor are they remotely in any postion of direct ownership.

That would be clubs like Newcastle, who if you are so concerned about the Saudis, you should be truly in a lather over.