Are Chelsea’s players losing faith in the project?

Summary

The Athletic FC Podcast — April 2, 2026

Episode Title: Are Chelsea’s players losing faith in the project?

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Athletic FC Podcast, hosted by Ayo Akinwolere, investigates growing unrest within the Chelsea squad following the departure of manager Enzo Maresca and ongoing frustrations with the club's direction under its ownership. Drawing insights from exclusive interviews with players and in-depth analysis from reporters Liam Toomey and Paul Ballus, the discussion covers the atmosphere in Chelsea’s dressing room, the impact of the club’s youth-focused recruitment policy, the financial strategies behind the scenes, and player perspectives on their futures at Stamford Bridge.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Marc Cucurella Speaks Out: Dressing Room Views

[00:02 – 04:06]

• Cucurella’s Perspective: In an exclusive with The Athletic, Marc Cucurella expresses frustration at the trajectory of Chelsea’s project, particularly the hasty departure of Enzo Maresca. He joins Enzo Fernandez in publicly questioning the club hierarchy's decisions.

  • "He's a player that he's been frustrated by the direction that Chelsea has been going over the last few months, specifically with Enzo Maresca's departure. That has been a painful thing to go through for this dressing room." — Paul Ballus (02:09)

• Leadership in the Squad: Though not the loudest, Cucurella is recognized as a respected voice among Chelsea’s young squad.

  • “I feel that when I speak they just respect me and that I feel an important person in that dressing room.” — Paul Ballus relaying Cucurella’s words (02:09)

• Squad Reaction to Maresca’s Departure: The decision left many in the squad “baffled,” with Pedro Neto and Malo Gusto also sharing their shock, albeit less vocally.

  • “The fact that this is being said publicly is clearly very uncomfortable for Chelsea's ownership. Sporting leadership.” — Liam Toomey (04:06)

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2. Ongoing Instability: Impact of Managerial and Policy Changes

[04:06 – 07:45]

• Cyclical Instability: Frequent changes in coaching and player turnover have contributed to a feeling of constant resetting within Chelsea, undermining squad cohesion and development.

  • “It's just another reset that sets them back... irrespective of what they think of Rosinha, it's just another step back.” — Liam Toomey (06:30)

• Challenges for New Coach Liam Rosinha: Barely given time to implement ideas, Rosinha inherits a squad still reeling from upheaval and lacking tactical continuity.

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3. Cucurella’s Standing with Spain and Its Effects

[07:45 – 11:05]

• International Success: Cucurella has cemented himself in Spain’s national team, winning the Euros and heading to the World Cup as a starter.

  • “He really impressed in trainings... Right now he's going to go to the World cup as the starting left back for Spain.” — Paul Ballus (08:04)

• Contrast Between Club and Country: The maturity and readiness of Spain’s side highlights the slower progress at Chelsea, pressuring players like Cucurella and Enzo Fernandez who are entering their peak years.

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4. Transfer Rumors: Barcelona Link?

[11:05 – 12:20]

• Barcelona Prospects: While Cucurella admits an offer would be tempting, financial and squad factors make a return unlikely this summer.

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5. Discontent from the Core: What Does It Mean for Chelsea?

[13:33 – 17:52]

• Player Dissent Hits Harder: Public complaints from key players strike differently than external criticism.

  • “The call has come from inside the house... The fact that it's two members of the leadership group saying we could maybe do with a bit more experience hits differently.” — Liam Toomey (13:57)

• Recruitment Policy Scrutinized: Despite claims that there’s no strict "under-23-only" policy, Chelsea's actions—signing predominantly young players—reflect otherwise.

  • “At a certain point, actions speak louder than words... you look at the players Chelsea actually signed last summer.” — Liam Toomey (16:13)

• Risks of Youth Project: If senior players become disillusioned and leave, the long-term project could unravel, risking yet another cycle of resets.

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6. Financial Deep Dive: Record Losses and Regulatory Loopholes

[20:43 – 32:01]

• Chelsea’s Record Losses: Club posts a £262.4 million pre-tax loss, the highest in English football history, yet manages to avoid breaching Premier League PSR due to creative accounting maneuvers.

  • “To most people it is... If I lost £262 million, I'd be quite concerned.” — Chris Weatherspoon (21:25)
  • “Chelsea have kind of acted smartly... exploiting lots of loopholes and now we're seeing other clubs do the same.” — Chris Weatherspoon (26:35)

• Impact on Squad and Transfers:

  • Heavy reliance on player sales to stay afloat financially, especially when UCL revenue is in jeopardy.
  • Long contracts for big signings (e.g., Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo) are intended for core building, not quick turnover. Selling them would be an admission of failure in the project.

• Revenue Challenges: Missing out on the Champions League for three out of four years would severely hit revenue and ambition.

  • "It's not going to make those conversations with the likes of Enzo Fernandes, Marc Cucarea and any other major player at Chelsea easier about the club's ambitions moving forward." — Liam Toomey (29:26)

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7. The Mikhail Mudryk Situation

[33:59 – 37:19]

• Banned since 2024 After Doping Violation: Mudryk remains in limbo, training solo and barred from Chelsea-run activities. His future remains uncertain pending the FA verdict.

  • “It was clear immediately that Mudryk is taking this incredibly seriously. He's in fantastic shape physically. He's lost none of the speed or the acceleration.” — Liam Toomey (34:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paul Ballus on Cucurella’s mindset:
  "[Cucurella] is a player that... his biggest obsession [is] that Chelsea can perform at the highest level." (00:52)
• Liam Toomey on Chelsea’s leadership group dissent:
  “The call has come from inside the house... the fact that it's two members of the leadership group of this very young squad saying we could maybe do with a bit more experience around us hits differently with the ownership.” (13:57)
• Chris Weatherspoon on financial gamesmanship:
  “Truthfully, it makes a mockery of the rules... they've managed to basically exploit loads of loopholes and now we're seeing other clubs do the same.” (23:09, 26:35)
• Liam Toomey on player contracts and value:
  “They were bought to be long term pillars... So if you have to turn around and sell Fernandez this summer, that is an admission that something has gone quite significantly against the plan.” (32:25)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:02 – 04:06: Cucurella’s exclusive interview; dressing room frustrations.
• 04:06 – 11:05: Impact of instability and international contrast; Cucurella’s status with Spain.
• 11:05 – 12:20: Barcelona rumors addressed.
• 13:33 – 17:52: Dissent within the squad and scrutiny of transfer policy.
• 20:43 – 32:01: Detailed financial analysis; regulatory loopholes and future risks.
• 33:59 – 37:19: The Mudryk ban—player fitness and uncertain return.

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Final Takeaway

Chelsea stands at a crossroads—plagued by repeated resets, a lack of experienced leadership, dissension among core players, and an unsustainable financial model. Cucurella's public criticisms, echoed by other key figures, encapsulate a broader sense of unease about the club's trajectory and the risks of a “project” that continually prioritizes the distant future over present progress and stability.

As the summer approaches, both player retention and squad additions—or departures—will be critical in defining whether the current regime can restore faith within the Blue ranks, on and off the pitch.

Transcript

[Ayo Akimolere]

The Athletic fc. Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, IO Akimwaleri. Mark Cucurea has lamented Chelsea's decision to part ways with Enzo Maresca. He joins Enzo Fernandes, who earlier this month said he did not understand the decision. So are Chelsea's players now losing faith in the club's hierarchy? All right, in with us today, we've got Liam Toomey. And over in Barcelona, we've got Paul Ballus as well. All right, so in an exclusive interview with the Athletic, Marco Correa has had his say on the decisions made by Chelsea's ownership poll. You spoke to him. I mean, this was a really fascinating interview. What was Cucurea like first, because I know he's got his perceptions here in the uk. You know, he sometimes seems like a little bit of a villain to opposition fans, doesn't he?

[Paul Ballus]

Yeah, I mean, he does like that. But when you speak to him, you can see a really honest, a really laid back person and a person that really thinks about what he's saying. While I was doing the interview, and the sense I got is that he cared about how the team was going, how the team is doing, and if Chelsea basically can perform at the highest level, that's his biggest obsession. And in a way, that's what comes across in the interview, I guess, because his frustration starts appearing just as we speak about the PSG tie in the Champions League. I think this is a game that is key in a way for Chelsea players to see where they as a project and the result and how it ended up, basically it exposed how a big part of the dressing room feels. I think that Cucurella spoke from that side of his chest, basically. And, yeah, we could see that he's a player that he's been frustrated by the direction that Chelsea has been going over the last few months, specifically with Enzo Maresca's departure. That has been a painful thing to go through for this dressing room as. As we could see.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Did you get a sense of him being a leader in that Jesse room? Because we, we often talk about the age profile of the Chelsea team. He would be slightly older ones, what, at 26, 27. And he's been there, what, for four years now? So you'd think he'd sort of amassed some sort of status there?

[Paul Ballus]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You have the feeling that he's an influential member of that Dragon room. I mean, when he signed for the club, Todd Boehly had just taken over the club, basically, Thomas Tuchel was the manager. So just to have an idea about that and how Chelsea have changed over the years. But. And I think that he feels like. That he feels like important people in that dressing room. We asked him like, off the record, like, are you like really the strongest voice? In the end he was like, well, maybe I didn't shout at players too much, but I feel that when I speak they just respect me and that I feel an important person in that dressing room. So, yeah, I don't think that there's many other big voices in that Chelsea team.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

Okay.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Now when we talk about the ownership and this is something I picked up from your piece, there seems to be a bit of frustration from his perspective. Can you just exactly pinpoint what his frustrations are in regard to the ownership at Chelsea?

[Liam Toomey]

Yeah.

[Paul Ballus]

So basically I think that they go towards, again, going to that PSG defeat and what it brought to the team, to the fact that Chelsea ownership has a clear policy of signing young players and just looking for the future and of course trying to get players that will have a resale value and looking at the financial side of the club as well. Then when you bring that to Champions League football and to the big level of football, sometimes you might find that there's a shortage of ready made talent. And that's what Cucurella felt most frustrated with. And then on top of that, there's the, as we mentioned, like the changes of managers and the feeling that the club was like going from one side to another side. It didn't feel like he was. He had any hard feelings towards Liam Rosinho. Actually he spoke well about Liam Rossinho, but gave me the feeling that Rossinho walked into a mess that he didn't mate, basically.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Well, Ian Cucurea described Maresca as the most important manager he'd worked with at Chelsea, echoing the view of Enzo Fernandez as well. Does this feel like a decision that most of the squad are still a little bit baffled by?

[Liam Toomey]

It certainly feels like it hasn't been fully processed by a significant chunk of the squad. I mean, Pedro Neto and Malo Gusto were two more players who came out in far less incendiary terms than Enzo Fernandez and Marcure over the last few months. Just to say how much of a shock it was, which I think it was to the squad, it was very abrupt. The way that Maresca's departure came about around the turn of the year. It's not necessarily fair to frame it as Chelsea sacking Maresca. As we discussed at the time. I think this was a genuinely mutual situation. I don't think Chelsea were super keen to make a mid season coaching change. There were clear issues with Maresca, which we detailed in our inside read at the time, and the direction of travel was probably towards a parting in the summer. But it was Maresca that really forced the issue in terms of leaving when he did. But I can understand, you know, Fernandez saying he didn't understand it and now Cucurella saying he wouldn't have made that decision or, you know, he would have maybe found a way to wait until the off season. But the fact that this is being said publicly is clearly very uncomfortable for Chelsea's ownership. Sporting leadership.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Yeah, we'll go into that a little later on. Something that Paul said that I thought was also really fascinating was that Cucurea has praised Rocinha but cited the fact that things aren't as stable as they were. Understandably. How much of an issue is this instability? Because much of what we've spoken about is that can Rocinha get these lads back on track? But let's not forget it's been a relatively turbulent season for many of these players.

[Liam Toomey]

Yeah, I mean, they didn't go into it in the ideal circumstances because they had the pressure of newly crowned world Champions, but without any kind of pre season because of that tournament. So they were already at a physical disadvantage relative to a lot of their Premier League and Champions League rivals. And I think that is a factor in what we're seeing now. But the fact that there's also been a mid season coaching change, another one under Bluco, has set things back. Just when I think quite a few of these players, and it's important to note that I don't think every member of the squad viewed Maresca the way that Enzo Fernandez and Mark Cucurea do. But they were clearly two of his biggest disciples on the pitch and in the dressing room and two members of this leadership group. And I think there probably is a feeling, regardless of how players felt about Maresca, that this is just another reset that sets them back. Almost irrespective of what they think of Rosinha, it's just another step back. Just when I think a lot of these players felt like they were ready to take a big step forward going into this season. Now you bring in another young coach, younger than Maresca was, with even less on his track record. And I think Rosinha's made a good impression on most of them, certainly on a personal level, but it's an unforgiving environment to come into in the middle of a season. You know, Rosinha's first month was a nine game month and Cucurea references that they really haven't had much time to train his ideas. And while Chelsea were looking at Rosinha as a continuation of Maresca, tactically, no two coaches are the same. Rosinha's got his own ideas, things he wants to do slightly differently, and he's been trying to implement those. But I think some of what we've been seeing from Chelsea on the pitch, particularly defensively, maybe their lack of structure in transition defensively is a ripple effect of Rossinha trying to implement things and maybe just not having the time at a crucial point in the season.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Now, Paul, I'm interested in Cucurea's sort of standing with the Spanish team. We saw him obviously lift the Euros very recently with that team, a newer addition at that time, but I don't know, with the media coverage and the song that we hear, the Cucurea song, there's a feeling that he's now embedded himself as part of this Spanish team moving forward.

[Paul Ballus]

No, absolutely, absolutely. It's totally different. As you said, he came in at the euros, at the 2024 Euros, basically as an emergency call up because a couple of left backs have been injured. Jose Luis Gallard from Valencia and Alejandro Valde were just injured. He was called up last minute and he had to compete with Alejandro Grimaldo for the place at the left back. But he really impressed in trainings. He was given the chance to start at the Euros and he hasn't looked back since. Right now he's going to go to the World cup as the est starting left back for Spain. He's an important dressing room member in that team as well. The coach, Luis de la Fuente, has given a lot of priority to create a good harmony in the dressing room and to make sure that everyone gets along really well. And Cucurena is key on that because he's so outgoing, so laid back, he likes to crack a joke. But in the same way he loves to compete, he embodies the exact mindset that Spain manager is just looking for his team.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Yeliam, could his success with the national side have exacerbated his frustrations at Chelsea?

[Liam Toomey]

Well, I guess there is a natural contrast there, I must say. I don't think Chelsea's a particularly dysfunctional dressing room. We've always got the sense, you know, as part of the huddle, building team chemistry and morale, you get the impression that these group of players like each other. I don't think there are like massive counterproductive cliques. I Think that, you know, the Spanish speaking players are obviously culturally close, but I think it's quite a bonded dressing room. And everyone of course is famously of quite a similar age, so that probably helps as well. But it is necessarily a less stable environment when you're getting this coaching churn, when every summer window you get significant player churn as well around these core players. I think that's potentially a bit destabilizing. But I think the bigger issue is that probably when Marc Correa goes off on Spain duty, he sees a group of players that are ready to win right now. And that isn't necessarily what some of these big players at Chelsea are seeing. I think we've seen Enzo Fernandez allude to that as well, that these guys have been there since the start of this project. Pretty much they were among the first players brought in in the first two windows. And when you see window after window, okay, there have been the occasional super impactful signing like Joao Pedro last summer, but there have been a lot more 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds. And I know Chelsea are exceptionally bullish about the, the talent and potential of these guys long term. But you could be forgiven if you're a player like Fernandez, who's 25 now. Cucurea, who's 27 now, I think he turns 28 this summer for looking around, thinking, well, how much longer do I have to wait before we're actually in a Premier League title race or in a Champions League semi final with designs of going to the final? I think the club World cup maybe gave everyone at the club a sense of validation, a sense that things were moving in the right direction. But Maresca's departure has set that back. And I think a lot of those players are now looking at is this another two, three year build and do I want to be part of another long term build?

[Ayo Akimolere]

Yeah. Paul Cucurella said an offer from Barcelona would be hard to turn down. What's the likelihood of him going to Barcelona this summer?

[Paul Ballus]

Yeah, I mean, right now I see it difficult for like many things besides the financial aspect that Barcelona have in here. But Cucure is at Chelsea. He extended his contract last summer. He's not in a bad salary. Barcelona in that position have Alejandro Valde. I don't envisage Barcelona as a club that are close to listen to offer for Valde. If there's a good offer, they would happily listen to that. But if they sell Balde, I don't know if they can afford to buy a player, as in with the salary status that Marco Kurelle has. Now, I think that when Cucurella spoke about this, it's because of course he has a strong feelings towards Barcelona. He was grown up in that youth academy. And when you ask him about Barcelona, he's a bit of a difficult position as well to say, no, I don't want to go back because he, of course he's a Barca fan. But then realistically, I see difficult to feed for all sides. Although as I said, I don't see Barca close to sell Alejandro Balde, but at the same time to bring in a player who has already a big salary and is older than Alejandro Valde. Let's see if Barca sees that.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Okay. Yesterday, before you go, and we were talking about the World cup and Carl and also Felipe, they were pointing at France, mate with a close second being Spain, because we were talking about the talent pool. Where do you see the Spanish in this World Cup? Are they favorites or second favorites?

[Paul Ballus]

I think they are top favorites. I think they are the favorites.

[Ayo Akimolere]

I would say that though, and I'm

[Paul Ballus]

trying, I'm trying to be as. As objective as I can here, but I think they, they just have the best, possibly the best squad, but what they have the best is the way that they play, the way that they know each other. Clear philosophy on how to play. As in when you don't play well, you know what to do better because you, you know how you want to play. So that's what the Spain has and that's a really good thing to have because when you are a bit lost, you know your way, you know the path that you have to go back to. And yeah, that sort of philosophy. I think that it's what strengthens Spain's case a bit more. Of course, that's France, who has a incredible squad depth and the amount of talent up front is amazing. But I think that the collective thing that Spain has assembled is really important in these sort of competitions.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Okay, well, as you said, Marc Cucurea is firmly embedded in that team as well. Paul, appreciate your time as always.

[Liam Toomey]

It's been a pleasure.

[Ayo Akimolere]

This is the Athletic FC podcast with Ayo Accemolere. Chelsea's ownership are no strangers to having their critics and doubters, but concerns from inside the club are certainly harder to ignore. Liam, with these comments, do you think it would have perked the ears of Bluco? And do you think they're aware of all this noise?

[Liam Toomey]

Yeah, I think it will make them really uncomfortable and probably quite angry that this is being said publicly. But I'm sure it's not anything that hasn't been relayed in some form privately as well. I'm sure. I'm sure some of these players have. Have made these points internally that they're maybe looking for a bit more experience around them. I think Maresca made references to that. Pochettino was very overt in terms of making references to it. So it's not as if this is the first time that it's really come from inside the house. The call has come from inside the house. But the fact that it's two members of the leadership group of this very young squad saying we could maybe do with a bit more experience around us, I think hits differently with the ownership and sporting leadership because it is a lot easier to brush it off when it's fans or even when it's journalists. You can say people on the outside don't have the full picture. They're not dealing with the information. They don't see what we see. But players do. They're there every day, they see the project up close and they tend to have a pretty good feel for where it is. And if you have players in their prime years that sense the momentum stalling around them, it's natural that they would ask questions. Now, I don't think we've got any sense that Mark Cucurea is looking to get out of Chelsea. Enzo Fernandez is obviously giving out much more ambiguous signs, seems deliberately so about his future. Cucurea's comments seem to come from a more genuine concern of, you know, he's happy at the club, he's happy in London, he wants to win, he's competing for the biggest trophies with Spain, he wants to do the same at club level. And it seems to be more of a concern that Chelsea aren't as far along that path as he would hope.

[Ayo Akimolere]

In terms of the recruitment, then, are there any inklings that if the opportunity did present itself, they might, dare I say it, go for a 30 year old player who's got some air miles on him, do you know what I mean? Because yes, the Joao Pedros of this world are brilliant and he's been fantastic, a great addition, but just someone who's got the air miles of having been to a Cup final, played in the Champions League regularly, just to steady that ship a little bit in various parts of the pitch.

[Liam Toomey]

Chelsea have always insisted that there is no hard and fast under 23 recruitment policy, that if the right player at the right price comes available and they are a veteran with experience and the right character, that the club would look to bring them in. And we were repeatedly told that they had interest in signing Virgil van Dijk as a free agent last summer. No idea whether that interest was ever reciprocated. It never looked like he was particularly close to leaving Liverpool. But at a certain point, actions speak louder than words. You can say what you want about, well, we're always open to experience. But you look at the players Chelsea actually signed last summer. Joao Pedro, I think was the exception. He was 23. He was about to enter his prime years. I think that's exactly the type of age you would like to sign a player as a top club because if they haven't already made the leap in many cases they are about to and maybe just need a bigger stage in order to do it. And that has certainly been borne out with him. But when you look at some of the other players that they signed last summer, it's. And the ages, it's 21, 20, 19, 18. And like I said, I think Chelsea are extremely high on the potential of a lot of these guys, particularly someone like Estevao, who I think has justified that with the flashes that he's shown this season. But it does reinforce the idea that these are the players that you are targeting, often at the opportunity cost of maybe going for slightly more ready players.

[Ayo Akimolere]

The thing about signing young players, and I think we've spoken about this on a previous pod before, is that you would expect them to grow together, right? So you're at a point where, let's say in three or four years time they've got the misters together and they're fighting together, but that requires that entire, the entirety of that team staying together. How damaging is it when you aren't hitting those highs? Players become disillusioned. Enzo Fernandez has been uttering certain things. They might leave, then that starts that cycle once again, Then you haven't got the, like the continuity. Go into another season and you almost have to start again.

[Liam Toomey]

Yeah, I mean, it only takes one or two. You know, every player is a different personality. They've all got a different viewpoint, maybe different career priorities and they'll look at things, they'll look at the project and they'll look at their own career slightly differently. And at the moment it looks like Enzo Fernandez, at least publicly, is looking at his career slightly differently. Now, I don't want to foreclose on the possibility that this all ends in a new contract because we reported a couple of months ago that him and Moises Caicedo were two of several players who were keen to discuss improved terms. But it only takes one to say, okay, I don't believe in this more anymore. I want to get out of here for whatever reason. And then once you lose one of those players, which Bluco haven't yet, it sends a very different message about what the operation is. Suddenly it looks like, okay, are we a selling club, you know, are we a rung below Real Madrid or the very top Premier League clubs, or are we trying to compete with them? That, I think, is the difficulty that they face this summer. It feels like we say this every summer now, that this is the most crucial summer of Blue coast ownership, but it really does feel that way this year because this is the first time that they look in genuine danger of potentially losing a player that they, all things being equal, wouldn't want to lose. Now, of course, they hold the cards in basically all of these situations. Cucurea has two years left on his contract, which is typically the point where Chelsea look to either extend or sell, so that's a bit of an exception. But Enzo Fernandez is contracted until 2032. Most of this core is under contract at Stamford Bridge through the end of the decade. So if anyone wants to come and buy them, they're going to have to pay up. And any sales will be on Chelsea's terms for the most part. But that doesn't mean that you have all of the leverage in a situation. You know, players can still make life a bit uncomfortable. They can still say things publicly that the club are maybe not happy about them saying, as Enzo Fernandez has been doing with these references to Madrid recently.

[Ayo Akimolere]

You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with Ayo Akimolere. Well, the ownership could have fires to put out elsewhere as Chelsea have posted the largest pre tax loss in English football history. Cue our finance football writer Chris Weatherspoon, who's just joined us. Right on time, mate. I mean, we've been talking about recruitment, we've been talking about management. Now we need to talk about the money, Chris. Chelsea have announced a $262.4 million. That's $349 million deficit in their accounts. I mean, I would say how significant is this? But this sounds like a whole heap of money.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

Well, I mean, to most people it is. If I lost £262 million, I'd be quite concerned. The first thing really actually to see is this is almost not news. We can't. We knew, we reported on a new familia UEFA report the end of February that Chelsea were going to make the biggest loss an English club has ever made. And, and, and even the fact that actually this 262 million differs from what is in that UEFA report kind of shows up the entire madness of this situation. So the UEFA report, The loss was 342 million, which I don't think you need a math degree to know, is quite a distance from 262 million. And, you know, that stems from. Stems from the fact Chelsea are in a multi club group, so they have some costs that don't appear in their accounts. It stems from UEFA rules around spreading transfer fees over five years, whereas in the accounts, Chelsea can still spread them over nine, or whatever it is, however many years they've signed players on. There must be other things going on that we won't see until we get the full account. But at the risk of branching out to somewhere you maybe weren't expecting when you asked the question, when we talk about significance, I think it kind of. It probably points to a wider issue that Chelsea intentionally, All other eyes have highlighted over the past couple of years. I'm not going to say that clubs haven't gamed the system forever in a day, but we're kind of seeing that on steroids now. I mean, the fact is that Chelsea and people's immediate reaction when that news came out about the loss, it was like, well, they must have failed psr. And the truth is that they haven't. They're absolutely fine. And people say, well, how can that be?

[Ayo Akimolere]

That's my first question. How on earth are they doing this? Like, this is insane.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

It is. It's mental. And it's because they sold the women's team or they moved the women's team within their group for a paper profit of, I think it was 198 million. The paper proceeds were 200 million. In Premier League PSR, there's nothing to stop you doing that. So they carry that, they carry that profit forward into the year, they make a massive loss and they're fine. I did a piece last June where we said, you know what? As mental as it seems, Chelsea could lose up to £300 million in 24, 25 and not breach PSR. And they've lost little under that and not breach PSR. So it's all. Truthfully, it makes a mockery of the rules. It's. There's a definite feeling as well that Chelsea have kind of acted smartly, some would say, in kind of putting all these things through while they can. So PSR disappears from view domestically at the end of this season. So the losses at the bottom line don't matter anymore. Clubs aren't going to get domestically, I should say they're not going to get assessed on that. So it's kind of like, well, if they push all this through now and get all the business done that they want to get done, which is a caveat in itself, but let's say that they have, then they're fine. And for the Premier League, UEFA is a different story. We already know that they breach UEFA's rules and they're in a settlement agreement. But what appears to be the case with the settlement agreement with UEFA, when they came to it last June, I think it appears that they said to UEFA, we're going to lose a lot of money. 24, 25, it's going to be this figure. If you read the settlement agreement with UEFA, they've basically said, as long as you don't exceed the figure, you've told us, okay, but next year you've got strong, you've got tighter limits. So Effectively, last season, 24, 25, we don't know exactly what's in there, but they put through, we know from our report previously, they've impaired player values where they think they won't like, recoup whatever they paid on them. There's some other asset write downs apparently in there. It seems they've put them through in 24, 25, knowing that they've got the headroom of the Premier League. And B, with UEFA, they've already told you IFA we're going to have a big loss. And then from this season on, the idea is to be, in theory, I'm not going to say sustainable, but to make smaller losses. But the thing about all this, we still haven't seen the full accounts. And the interesting thing is that Chelsea make a habit of saying, actually we're profitable at the operating level or something along those lines. That's only true if you include player sales, which it's debatable that you can include them at the operator level. If nobody wanted to buy any of Chelsea's players, they. They've been quite a bit of difficulty. And I think what will also be interesting, really, is when we do get these full accounts is how much did Bluecore have to put in in the first two seasons? They put in the thick end of £800 million. Now, that was to facilitate this enormous transfer spend. It'll be interesting to see how much they had to put in last season.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Yeah, very quickly and I don't know if there's a succinct way of saying this, there'll be Other fans listening to this, Everton fans, for that matter, Nottingham Forest fans, for that matter, maybe even Leicester fans going, have we been slapped on the wrist with fines and stuff? And Chelsea is still kind of getting away with it in a weird way.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

I think it comes back to football is a sport versus football as a business. And it feels like we're lurching very far to the ladder. And it feels like a lot of Chelsea's activity in the last couple of years has been, look, like I said before, some people may label it as smart, some people may say, but why wouldn't they do this? But it feels very much like they've gone, we want to come in, we want to spend a lot of money on players, we want to build. We want to completely revamp the recruitment and the makeup of the squad, which they have. I think they've got the youngest. Liam will know better than me. I think they've got the youngest team in the Premier League and that's the way they want to do it. And they've kind of gone, well, we'll. We'll take the hit of these kind of regulatory issues in the early years in order to get to that position. And what they've managed to do domestically, at least, it's a lot harder to do it with UEFA, as it's been proven domestically, they've managed to basically exploit loads of loopholes and now we're seeing other clubs do the same. We saw Newcastle United claim that this wasn't a primary motivation, and that may be true. But Newcastle bagged their first profit under their current owners earlier this week through selling St. James's park to a group company. So we're seeing other clubs do it. I think the point around Everton, Forest and Leicester, I think out of those three, I would say Everton fans can probably feel the most aggrieved. Based on what has happened since with other clubs, it feels like Everton were really kind of held up as, no, don't mess us around. But actually, we're seeing fairly egregious examples of the rules being not broken, because they haven't, at least with the Premier League, certainly exploited. And I think Everton fans in particular can feel quite aggrieved.

[Ayo Akimolere]

What about the added pressure, Liam, of not qualifying for the Champions League next season, especially for this project moving forward. And we're talking about balancing books, whichever way they might be trying to do that. But, I mean, that's serious revenue not coming into the club.

[Liam Toomey]

Yeah, it is. And they've, you know, they're insulated slightly by the fact that they got this bumper Club World cup windfall last. Last summer. And I think they had some flexibility. Chris know more about this than me, about which year they banked that in and how much of it they banked in which financial year. So I'm sure they'll do that in the most strategically beneficial way for them, whatever that is.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

Yeah. So on that, to be fair, they don't really have the flexibility. It's just because the tournament spanned the end of June. That's how you record it effectively when you earn it.

[Liam Toomey]

So the rounds after July 1, the rounds of the tournament.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Yeah.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

Which are obviously the most lucrative one. So I think at a rough like, again, haven't seen the full account, so it's hard to say, but from looking at other things, at a rough estimate, I think they made, we think about 84, 85 million overall, I think 20 million of that went into 24, 25. So you're talking about 65 million dropping into the current season, plus the Champions League revenue.

[Liam Toomey]

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that will obviously help, but projecting forward, it will hurt next year. No Champions League revenue, non club World cup year. And the bigger picture is that would make three out of the first four Blue coast seasons ending in no Champions League football. And clearly, financially that's a problem, but it's arguably an even bigger problem on a sporting level, because it affects the players that you can attract. It affects maybe the players you can keep. We've been talking about that a lot on this podcast. It's not going to make those conversations with the likes of Enzo Fernandes, Marc Cucarea and any other major player at Chelsea easier about the club's ambitions moving forward. When you say the bar to qualify for the Champions League has never been lower. It was top five, not top four. And we still couldn't make it in year four of this project.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

And I think as a corollary to that, certainly the Enzo Fernandes example, we did a piece on the site recently that talked about when Chelsea were signing these players on really long terms. And Fernandes, for example, they signed him before UEFA and the Premier League brought this rule in about five years. So they can still spread his cost over. It's ended up being eight and a half years, his contract, because they took the extension up. But the issue with that is if they want to sell them or perhaps if the player doesn't want to be around anymore. For a club whose business world is very heavily reliant on selling players and very heavily reliant on selling them At a profit that becomes incredibly hard to do. We did an estimate in that piece. Fernandez, they would have to hit around 75 to 80 million just to break even on him now. Because people might go, well, he's worth 100 million. Like, well, okay, but you're already actually making 20 million profit kind of thing. You know, like when Liverpool, just to use an example, when Liverpool sold Coutinho, the easy example that everyone goes to, that set them up massively because they made an enormous profit on him. Whereas actually with Chelsea it's very difficult to do that. And I think I understand the player trend thing. And truthfully, this season they sold players for we think around 300 million last summer. There's two things on that. One, of course, from a cash perspective, that's a big boost. But we don't know how much of that was actually profit. We don't know how much that is actually helping the bottom line. And I think you've nailed it, really. Of course it's a sporting issue, but it's also increasingly a financial issue. Chelsea are one of the clubs that you look at the money they spend and the numbers don't add up if they're not in the Champions League.

[Ayo Akimolere]

That was my biggest worry when we saw Enzo FERNANDEZ Come in. Liam, 100 million plus Moses Cado, 100 million plus big, big fees to try and recoup back. Do you think Chelsea are in a position with a lot of the buyers that they've brought in, especially at that level if they do leave to recoup a similar money, dare I say, a profit from those big, big bought players?

[Liam Toomey]

Well, I think it's important to distinguish those two deals because those, those transfer fees were such outliers, even for Chelsea. I think that signaled at the time, and it was very clear from the message messaging coming out of Stamford Bridge, these two players in particular, Fernandez and Caicedo, were not bought to be sold. They were bought to be long term pillars of the next great Chelsea team. And so if you have to turn around and sell Fernandez this summer, that is an admission that something has gone quite significantly against the plan because, you know, not just on an accounting level, but he was, he was supposed to be there for his prime years and they were, they were banking on him to be one of the leaders of the team. So I think that's why they set themselves up in that sense by agreeing to pay so much and spread it over such a long period of time. Because they were thinking, well, these other players around the edges, we can trade, we've paid less for them. They're on reasonable salaries, which is what we're always told, reasonable base salaries. And the evidence of the last three, four years is that when Chelsea have really wanted to sell players, by and large, they've been able to. And occasionally they've been able to sell them for very good prices. I mean, someone like Nonni Madueke, last summer, they made a very, very handsome profit on him. But that was never intended, I think, to be the case with players like Fernandes and Caicedo in particular. And if it does end up being the conclusion of the Fernandes story, I think that's one that they'll have to chalk up as one that didn't go to plan.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Okay, Chris, I better let you go. Really appreciate your time, as always.

[Chris Weatherspoon]

Thanks, guys.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Right, Liam, before we go, we need to talk about Mikhail Modric. He hasn't featured For Chelsea since 2024 after being banned, testing positive for doping. I've seen the social media footage of him practicing by himself, hitting the crossbar, trying to set up goals. But what is the latest with him? Is he coming back to Chelsea? Is he training again?

[Liam Toomey]

He's certainly training, as people will have seen from his social media. He's been doing solo Sessions at Uxbridge FC's ground, Honeycroft, and I got the chance to go down and watch him this week, and the thing for me was, how do you stay ready as a footballer when you're not allowed to play football? And, I mean, it was clear immediately that Mudryk is taking this incredibly seriously. He's in fantastic shape physically. He's lost none of the speed or the acceleration. The day that I watched him on was a shooting day, so he was doing a lot of different shooting drills, and there was still plenty of evidence of that incredible shot power that fans will remember from when he last played for Chelsea. I remember one shot crashing off the crossbar and the noise reverberated around the whole ground, rebounding towards the halfway line. He didn't miss that many, but the ones he did miss, he was definitely hard on himself. It's clear that he's taking it very, very seriously. He's trying to hold himself to high standards despite not knowing when this disciplinary process with the FA will conclude he was. He was charged with a breach of their anti doping violations back in June 2025. And we're 10 months on from that. Sixteen months on from when he last played for Chelsea, when he scored against Heidenheim in the UEFA Conference League. That feels like a long time ago in football, and it's a long time in. In Mujic's career, he was 23 then he turned 25 in January. And Chelsea are supporting him, of course, he. He's their player, but they're not allowed to organise anything for him. So everything that he's doing at Uxbridge fc, from renting the pitch to, you know, hiring coaches and inviting other players, on the day that I watched him, there were two goalkeepers brought in to try and save the shots. Not with much success. A lot of the time that's all arranged by his team as per the regulations at this point in the process. So it's a difficult situation and Chelsea have obviously had to plan their squad accordingly, signing Alejandro Garnacho and Jamie Gittens last summer to compete for minutes on the left wing. And we ultimately just don't know how or when this is going to be resolved. The maximum ban that Mudryk could get is four years. He's already missed, as I said, 16 months, which historical precedent would suggest will be counted as time served in any punishment. And if he's found innocent, he could resume his career immediately. But everything is still very up in the air. It made for quite a surreal experience watching him, but it was very, very clear that you're still watching a Premier League talent and a Premier League athlete, albeit one in a very unusual situation.

[Ayo Akimolere]

Okay, well, Chelsea face Port Vel in the FA cup this weekend, where they'll look to be quieting the noise in many respects for now at least. Matt Davies Adams will be with you tomorrow to preview the weekend action, including Manchester City versus Liverpool. Thanks Liam, Paul, and also Chris. And also thank you guys for joining us as well. We'll catch you soon. You've been listening to the Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beale, with editing by Paul Iliff and Nick Thompson. The executive producer is Adey Moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, including our dedicated club shows. Search for the Athletic Wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find us on YouTube at the Athletic FC Podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC Podcast is an athletic media company production.