There’s nothing quite like some vast Saudi generosity to send you skipping around a potential breach of spending rules and into the transfer market.
Chelsea really will be laughing all the way to the bank, having cashed a mighty £43.7million for the Portuguese forward Joao Felix, a bang-average player now heading to Al Nassr.
Let’s remind ourselves how things turned out for the 25-year-old during his two stints at Stamford Bridge. Having arrived on a six-month loan in January 2023, Felix was sent off after an hour of his first game, at Fulham, and proceeded to score just four times in 20 appearances.
For reasons known only to themselves, Chelsea then made him a permanent signing a year later, from Atletico Madrid, as part of the deal which sent Conor Gallagher the other way.
Felix’s shiny seven-year contract was dust within six months, when he was deemed persona non grata and sent on loan to AC Milan. He had made just nine starts for Chelsea this time, only three of which were in the Premier League.
His goal in the 6-2 thrashing of Wolves in the Blues’ second league game of last season was the only one against serious opposition, the other six coming against Morecambe in the FA Cup and Panathinaikos and Noah in the Conference League.
Chelsea will be laughing all the way to the bank after selling Joao Felix to Saudi Arabia
Todd Boehly assured the Premier League that PIF had no involvement in the club’s takeover
Their casual confetti spending is beyond belief but they have Saudi friends ready to fork out
So a gross misjudgment, you’d have to say. Yet now he’s worth the thick end of £44m.
This casual confetti spending is beyond belief, at a time when so many rival clubs find themselves severely constrained by profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
But for Chelsea there appears to be no jeopardy and no need to fret if things don’t work out, because they so often have their Saudi friends ready to fork out and take the misfits.
This beneficence is coming from the Saudi state’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, who – as well as controlling Newcastle United – have a serious investment in Clearlake Capital, who are part of Chelsea’s ownership group.
The Premier League have accepted assurances from Todd Boehly, who bought Chelsea with Clearlake in 2022, that PIF had no involvement in their takeover, which would have potentially created a conflict of interest due to their ownership of Newcastle.
But rivals have long been expressing concern over the Saudi Pro League’s interest in a host of Chelsea players. One top club have described teams’ use of the Saudis as a ‘get out of financial fair play jail-free card’.
Felix is the latest Chelsea player to be plonked straight on a private jet to Riyadh having been deemed a failure, past their best or an error of judgment.
Al Nassr also proved helpful when paying £19.1m for 19-year-old Brazilian winger Angelo Gabriel, who did not play a single minute for Chelsea yet left for £6m more than they paid for him.
Felix is the latest Chelsea player to be plonked straight on a private jet to Riyadh
Both N’Golo Kante (left) and Kalidou Koulibaly (right) have gone the same way in recent years
Raheem Sterling was astonished by Chelsea’s attempts to force him to move to the Gulf
N’Golo Kante, Kalidou Koulibaly and Edouard Mendy all went the same way. And then there was the ultimate Saudi cash-in, as Chelsea had imagined it, for Raheem Sterling – a player rather less willing to be spirited away into the desert.
When Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca decided he didn’t fancy Sterling, barely two years after Boehly had thrown a £300,000-a-week contract at the winger and begged him to sign, Chelsea were so convinced the Gulf was a way of getting shot that they completed the paperwork before the player had even agreed to go.
Sterling was astonished and called their bluff. He didn’t want to be pushed into the Middle East after settling his family into London and with the pleasure he was taking in watching his son develop into an Under 9s player at Arsenal’s academy.
Offered a choice between the Chelsea bomb squad or the desert, the gist of Sterling’s response was: ‘I’ll stay, then. You won’t push me around.’
And stay he did, until deadline day last summer, when Chelsea were forced to agree to Arsenal’s offer of a season-long loan as a way of getting two thirds of his salary off their books.
Chelsea claim Saudi interest in their players is purely transactional and down to the club’s popularity in the Middle East, but the conveyor belt taking players from Stamford Bridge to Riyadh continues to roll.
At the top of English football, you can cut the cynicism with a knife.
