The staggering cost of the biggest flop in Chelsea history
Cameron Smith
- Updated: 18 Jan 2022 18:52 GMT
- 3 min read
Winston Bogarde isn't a name that will bring any sense of joy to Chelsea fans. In fact, many of the Blues faithful won't even know he played for their club.
That's because the former Ajax, Milan, and Barcelona defender played just 12 times during his four-year spell at Stamford Bridge, with 11 of those coming in his first season.
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Bogarde arrived at Chelsea on a free transfer from Barcelona, having been part of Ajax's 1995 Champions League winning squad, and playing for Milan beforehand.
Gianluca Vialli was the Chelsea manager at the time of Bogarde's signing, but just days after the Dutch international joined the Blues, Vialli was sacked and replaced by Claudio Ranieri.
Now, Ranieri wasn't a fan of Bogarde, and deemed him an unnecessary part of the Chelsea squad. The Italian manager didn't plan on using Bogarde, but the club had a problem - he soon refused to leave.
With the player joining on a £40,000 per week wage in 2000, he was earning a lot at Chelsea - more than most at the time. This was before Roman Abramovich made Chelsea one of the richest clubs in the world, so a dent this size in the wage bill every week was a problem.
Bogarde may have arrived for free, but his wages began to rack up quickly.
£10m for just 12 appearances for Chelsea
Forced to train with the youth team, Bogarde simply refused to be sold, safe in the knowledge that he'd receive a far greater wage by not playing at Chelsea than moving to a new club.
Between 2000 and 2004, Bogarde earned nearly £10 million in wages, which works out at £17m in today's market, according to the Bank of England's inflation calculator.
While that may seem slightly insignificant for Chelsea now, back in Bogarde's time at the club it was a huge financial burden.
With Chelsea unable to shift him, and Bogarde left out of contention for the first-team far more often than not, it was an untenable situation, and one that ended up costing Chelsea in the financial department.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2015, Bogarde revealed that he would happily have taken a 30% wage cut in order to play. "Of course. For a player, for me, it’s terrible not to play. Yet I had to return for training."
But, in the end, he'd gone nearly two years without playing for Chelsea when he eventually left in 2004, collecting £40,000 per week throughout that entire time.
It may not have been Chelsea's most expensive move ever, but for someone who made just four starts for the club, it was a complete waste of money.
