EXCLUSIVE: How Chelsea reneging on transfer agreement helped cost them Olise

Duncan Castles

Updated: 25 Jun 2024 16:07 CDT
4 min read

Michael Olise, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, 2023/24 — © IMAGO

Chelsea are set to miss out on Crystal Palace winger Michael Olise, with the club’s past behaviour in the transfer market counting against them in the deal.

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Olise appears poised to leave Palace to sign Bayern Munich in a deal worth in excess €60 million, with the former France U21 international having appeared favourite to go to Stamford Bridge at one point.

But football transfer news expert Duncan Castles has revealed on the Transfers Podcast, produced in conjunction with FootballTransfers, that the Blues’ dealing with Benfica in their January 2023 deal to sign Enzo Fernandez has put clubs off doing business with them.

Speaking last week at a time when it appeared Olise was likeliest to move to Chelsea, Castles revealed: “We should also note that the sporting directors at Chelsea, 18 months ago, went to Benfica to sign Enzo Fernandez. They told Benfica that they would match the release clause for Enzo Fernandez in initial informal conversations with them.

“They were given permission to speak to the player. They convinced the player by offering him a huge salary increase over Benfica to the point where he agitated for the move. And then they came back to Benfica and offered, I forget the exact number, but it was €20-30m less than the release clause.

“Rui Costa, the president of Benfica was infuriated with it. And we had this really messy, probably two-week period. And when they finally negotiated out a deal, it came very close to the release clause in the end.

© IMAGO - Michael Olise is set to sign for Bayern Munich

“I would suspect - and it's just my suspicion - that Parish will be paying attention exactly to the phrasing of what Chelsea are doing because people in the market have noted what Chelsea have done in other circumstances and noted that what they did with Fernandes in terms of a verbal agreement was reneged on down the line.”

Olise has an Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) of €41.6m while his contract with Crystal Palace is set to expire in 2027.

Castles previously revealed that Olise’s release clause is in excess of the €60m that had been reported in the press.