How Chelsea will beat UEFA rules on EIGHT-YEAR Caicedo contract
Paul Macdonald
- Updated: 14 Aug 2023 10:29 BST
- 5 min read
Chelsea are about to break the British transfer record to acquire Moises Caicedo from Brighton for an eye-watering £115 million (€133m).
Caicedo looks set to sign an eight-year contract with the option of a ninth - something that has confused some fans.
UEFA regulations brought in at the end of last season were designed to restrict certain accounting measures that Chelsea had used, particularly in the signings of Enzo Fernandez and Mykhailo Mudryk.
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But the limit that UEFA applied was that contracts could only be amortised over five years. This means that Caicedo’s value in Chelsea’s accounts has to be split across five years, rather than across the eight years in his contract, as is common in the Blues’ accounting procedures.
BUT! This legislation is only applicable to teams playing in UEFA competition in that season. Since Chelsea are not in Europe in 2023/24, and the Premier League have no such rule in place, it means that Chelsea are free to amortise Caicedo’s cost over the eight years of the contract.
That means a deal that should be 115/5 = £23m will in fact be booked as 115/8 = £14.37m.
MORE: Chelsea get DOUBLE ‘Here we go’ as Romano announces transfer in addition to Caicedo
What happens if Chelsea qualify for Europe?
Under UEFA regulation Chelsea will need to reconfigure the amortisation to meet the criteria. That is, every player featuring in UEFA competition has to have a contract that is amortised over five years. So Chelsea will make the adjustment at that point.
But it will be an adjustment of seven years, rather than eight, at that point, and so there will be less to be accounted for from the original £115m balance.
So Chelsea are free to sign Caicedo - and indeed any other players they’ve brought in this summer - on extended contracts and will only have to comply when they are back in Europe.
