Dark reason behind Chelsea’s transfer spending revealed by pundit in sensational claim

Robin Bairner

• 9 Feb 2024 01:29 CST
• 2 min read

Chelsea’s enormous transfer spend last season came about because the Blues thought they were heading for a transfer ban, a pundit for NBC has sensationally claimed, citing a “very good source” told him of the Blues’ fears.

Chelsea spent an unprecedented figure during the 2022/23 season, setting records for transfer spend in both the summer and winter as they added players like Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Wesley Fofana to their ranks at great expense. In total, more than €1 billion has been spent by the London giants over the first three transfer windows of Todd Boehly's ownership.

There was some confusion as to why the Blues spent so lavishly at the time given they had been competitive in the Premier League during the 2021/22 campaign, in which they finished third.

Chelsea feared transfer embargo

NBC pundit Robbie Mustoe, though, has claimed that the outlay came about because of fears there would be a clamp down on the club due to the accounts left by Roman Abramovich’s regime, which was ushered out of the club following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I wouldn’t have spent all that money so quickly, when you haven’t got the professionals in charge,” Mustoe claimed to The Byline.

“But my understanding is - and it’s from a very, very good source - that the financial problems that were left with the club, that the new ownership had to go through all the books - and by the way they are pretty thorough with all this stuff - and there was so many dodgy looking things in the accounts the club thought that they were going to get done.

“And they have been done - they had been done by the way, they’ve been fined.

“The club were worried that they were going to get another transfer ban and to jump ahead of that potential transfer ban when they said the accounts are here and we admit there’s some problems here and some dodgy agents or whatever it is. They thought they had to stack up on players.”

Chelsea have been fined by Uefa over their previous accounts but remain under investigation from the Premier League.