The clock is ticking for Chelsea, who now have less than two weeks to prove to UEFA that they have balanced their books enough to be permitted to add their abundance of summer signings to Enzo Maresca’s Champions League squad for this season.
The Blues have sold well this summer: Joao Felix to Al-Nassr in a deal worth up to £43.7million; Djordje Petrovic to Bournemouth for £25m; Armando Broja and Lesley Ugochukwu to Burnley for £45m.
However, none of those sales will help their case in the eyes of European football’s governing body, with whom they entered into a settlement agreement in July after flunking financial rules, and nor would finding new homes for exiles such as Raheem Sterling or Ben Chilwell.
That is because UEFA have now confirmed to Confidential that their auditors will only be accounting for the money made on those who were named in the squad submitted by Chelsea for last season’s Conference League knockout stages.
Crucially, that means the sales of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to Everton, Noni Madueke to Arsenal and Mathis Amougou to Strasbourg will work towards satisfying UEFA, but the exits of Felix et al will not. Felix did feature in the Conference League but only in the first half of the season. He was then excluded from their knockout-stage squad as he was sent on loan to AC Milan for the second half.
Chelsea are continuing to work on selling stars who were involved in that Conference League run-in, such as Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku. The Blues are prioritising permanent sales for those two particular players rather than loaning them away, as they did with Marc Guiu and Sunderland.
If Chelsea fail to comply with UEFA’s rules then they may be unable to register summer signing Joao Pedro for their Champions League squad
Liam Delap, who joined the Blues from Ipswich this summer, would also be affected
Chelsea’s complex agreement with UEFA included a record fine worth £26.8m rising to £78.5m, but the key sporting sanction warned how the club ‘may not register any new player on its List A to UEFA club competitions unless the List A Transfer Balance is positive’.
In simplistic terms, it means the cost of adding anyone new to their Champions League squad for the coming campaign must be covered by those already sold.
UEFA’s literature defined this as ‘cost savings’ versus ‘new costs’ and related to their A List, where they can register up to 25 senior stars.
Chelsea face no additional restrictions on who they can add to their B List, though that is reserved for youngsters born on or after January 1, 2004 and who have been with the club for at least two uninterrupted years.
Interestingly, because Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia were not included in Chelsea’s Conference League knockout-stage squad last season, they will require registering like everyone else who arrived this summer.
Fofana would need to be added to their A List, just like Joao Pedro, Liam Delap, Jorrel Hato, Jamie Gittens, Estevao Willian, Dario Essugo, et cetera. However, Lavia is helpfully believed to be B List eligible due to his age – he makes the cut by only six days with January 6, 2004 his date of birth – and the fact he has now been at Chelsea for two years.
Confidential asked UEFA insiders for further information on ‘cost savings’ versus ‘new costs’ with Chelsea looking to balance their A List.
We were told ‘cost savings’ cover amortisation and salary while if Chelsea make a profit on a sold player, a third of that is taken into account.
For example, Chelsea signed Madueke for £29m from PSV Eindhoven but sold him for £48.5m to Arsenal.
That means £6.5m of the £19.5m difference should help with UEFA, who stood up this specific scenario when asked.
Chelsea are looking to sell striker Nicolas Jackson this summer after buying Pedro and Delap
Wesley Fofana (above) and Romeo Lavia were not included in Chelsea’s Conference League knockout-stage squad last season and will require registering like new signings too
Jadon Sancho and Lucas Bergstrom were also released in the summer, freeing up their salaries, while Mykhailo Mudryk is still suspended from football after being charged with anti-doping violations.
We were then told ‘new costs’ are likewise based on amortisation and salary.
As an example, Delap cost £30m, but that is seen as £6m annually because of UEFA’s five-year restriction on contract lengths, despite him penning an even longer deal upon arriving from Ipswich.
The bottom line is, when Chelsea submit their Champions League squad on September 2, the ‘cost savings’ must be higher than the ‘new costs’ to allow for new additions, and they can register fewer than the allocation of 25 players on their A List if they wish, as a way of meeting that target.
That could lead to the Blues picking and choosing which players they can afford to add for use in Europe’s elite competition while excluding those they cannot.
Chelsea did not comment when asked if they were confident they would be allowed to add the stars they want to their Champions League squad or if further sales were still a necessity, but all will be revealed in less than two weeks’ time.
Fofana furore
There was a social-media meltdown on Wednesday morning when Wesley Fofana appeared to remove all Chelsea content from his Instagram page.
However, Confidential was told by his camp that he has no issues with the club and it was merely part of a reshuffle via his content manager.
Blues legend backs Caicedo
Confidential was able to ask Claude Makelele a few questions this week and, naturally, Moises Caicedo featured within them. We suspect you will like what he had to say with the Q&A below.
Confidential: ‘Have you spoken with Caicedo in person and if so, what was your advice to him to follow in your footsteps as the world’s best defensive midfielder?’
Moises Caicedo has been a mainstay in Chelsea’s midfield since joining in 2023
Blues legend Claude Makelele has backed Caicedo to have a great future in the game
Makelele: ‘I love the boy. I played with Michael Essien, Frank Lampard, (John) Obi Mikel, Scott Parker. I played with many good players, very good players. But this boy, he has something different. I think he will progress a lot.
‘I will keep pushing him because I talk with him. I’ve visited Chelsea a few times, and I have had the opportunity to talk to him.
‘He needs proper leadership. Proper leadership is the way I’ve been with him. Take care of the team and make the decision before the manager makes the decision.
‘This will help Chelsea with winning games. You must show leadership with body language, leadership with and without talking, and leadership with setting an example in the game. You must do everything for your team-mates.
‘He now stands as a top, top player in the world. He’s young, he will progress, and he will have a great future.’
Confidential: ‘Does Caicedo have what it takes for his position to one day be known as “the Caicedo role”, like how “the Makelele role” became famous in football?’
Makelele: ‘I hope for him that he uses me as an example, but he needs to do his own thing. This is because to achieve a high level, sometimes it’s difficult (to achieve).
Makelele won two Premier League titles, the FA Cup and two League Cups during his five-year spell with Chelsea
‘Some players, they disappear because they get compared a lot. You can compare some great players, like (Lionel) Messi to everybody, but they don’t compare. I think for him (Caicedo), he needs to concentrate and do his job, because playing as a midfielder is so complicated.
‘He’s a very complete player. I think in the future he can play even better in this position and have the proper quality to give back for the young generation behind him.’
Confidential: ‘Should Chelsea be listening more to Enzo Maresca when he publicly says that he needs a centre back to replace Levi Colwill after his ACL injury?’
Makelele: ‘It’s not just Chelsea. There are a lot of clubs that need this (centre back cover). Of course, you need this because they will play FA Cup, Premier League, Champions League, all these competitions and you need to have 20 players to play in all these competitions.
‘Now (Trevoh) Chalobah has come back, which shows how the loan system works to give us the quality that Chelsea deserve. The history of Chelsea, the way Chelsea will compete, because playing for Chelsea, you need to be ready, because it’s tough.
‘It’s one of the most difficult teams in London to adapt to. And of course you will need a defender. But you need a defender who understands how Chelsea play, their history and come to help the club progress.’
Makelele was speaking via online sports platform, Oddspedia.
Isa keeps close eye on hat-trick hero Mheuka
Shim Mheuka, the 17-year-old from the academy, scored a hat-trick in Chelsea Under 21s’ season-opening victory over Manchester City on Monday.
Among those in attendance at Kingsmeadow was Willie Isa, the club’s hire from the world of rugby whose influence with the Blues’ first team has been appreciated internally.
Chelsea academy star Shim Mheuka netted a hat-trick in the Under 21s’ victory over Man City on Monday
Willie Isa, the former rugby league star who is now Chelsea’s ‘cultural architect’, was watching on as Mheuka caused City nightmares
We wrote a deep dive into Mheuka which was published a few months before he became Chelsea’s youngest-ever player to start in a major European match. It included the story of how they signed him from Brighton at the age of 14 for £1m rising to £4.25m.
We also wrote a long read on Isa earlier this month on how he has gotten to work as their ‘cultural architect’.
Meanwhile, Jimi Tauriainen was not in the Chelsea Under-21 squad that faced City, but I’m told he is fine and merely going through his full recovery plan. The 21-year-old is expected to build his minutes by playing against Newcastle in the Premier League 2 this Friday instead.
Tauriainen is now back in the swing of full training after an ACL injury which he suffered not long after he had appeared for Chelsea’s first team.
‘Well done boys, good process’
The next episode of Match Officials Mic’d Up, slated for broadcast in early September, is expected to include the audio which saw Eberechi Eze’s free-kick disallowed at Stamford Bridge because Marc Guehi was stood within a metre of the Chelsea wall.
It was the first time we have seen this particular rule enforced in the Premier League despite it being introduced in 2019, and it saved Chelsea from falling behind to Eze’s scorching strike.
Sanchez going long?
To the naked eye, it seemed Robert Sanchez was looking long during Chelsea’s goalless draw with Crystal Palace. I thought that myself from my seat in the press box.
To the statisticians, however, he was not.
Sanchez sent 12 of his 34 passes long versus Palace, equating to 35.3 per cent. Here is how that compares to his percentages in previous Premier League campaigns for Chelsea and Brighton:
2020-21: 47.2 per cent (464 long passes out of 984 total passes)
2021-22: 46.7 per cent (623 long passes out of 1,333 total passes)
2022-23: 35.5 per cent (239 long passes out of 673 total passes)
2023-24: 35.4 per cent (184 long passes out of 520 total passes)
2024-25: 46.3 per cent (487 long passes out of 1,052 total passes)
Tosin fitness boost
Tosin Adarabioyo is pushing to return in time for Chelsea’s trip to West Ham this Friday.
The 27-year-old was left out of the visit of Crystal Palace on Sunday as a precaution but he was still at Stamford Bridge, making a point of speaking with various players to offer advice.
Tosin Adarabioyo missed Chelsea’s season opener against Crystal Palace with a ‘physical problem’
That included him calling Reece James over to the touchline before the start of the second half to tell the Chelsea captain that he had to encourage everyone else to up their intensity.
The name games
Chelsea uploaded a video to their social media channels on Tuesday of their players telling supporters how to properly pronounce their names.
There were 25 of them who featured in total over the 41-second clip, though they opted not to include Nicolas Jackson or Christopher Nkunku. You can imagine why – and it isn’t because their names are straightforward to say.
Latest on Colwill replacement
An inevitable consequence of Enzo Maresca declaring he would like to sign a new central defender after Levi Colwill’s ACL injury was that Chelsea would be linked with apparent transfer targets.
Levi Colwill suffered a significant knee injury during pre-season
Inter Milan defender Alessandro Bastoni is not a target for the Blues to help cover for Colwill’s absence
In Italy, it was suggested that they had made a £43.2m move for Inter Milan’s Alessandro Bastoni. It was a rumour worth checking but when we did, one source described it as complete fiction.
Chelsea believe they have good options at centre back as it is, despite Maresca making his feelings known. While they are constantly monitoring the market in case opportunities crop up, it would likely require someone leaving the Blues in order for them to bring anyone in.
Garnacho latest
Alejandro Garnacho wants Chelsea.
Chelsea want Garnacho.
Manchester United want £50m.
Chelsea want a lower price.
Hence the standoff.
