The fee Chelsea are set to pay Leicester City to appoint Enzo Maresca will put further strain on their financial fair play position.
Chelsea’s scattergun approach in the transfer market under the Todd Boehly regime has left them struggling to keep their heads above water in terms of Premier League spending rules.
And the owners are hiring and firing managers at an quicker rate even than Roman Abramovich, who was known for his trigger-happy approach.
As per Sky Sports and other sources, it now appears that Leicester boss Maresca will become the fourth manager of the West London side in almost exactly two years to the day since the Boehly takeover.
The arrival of the Italian, who led the Foxes to the Championship title this season, will see a sizable chunk slashed from Chelsea’s financial fair play balance (now known as Profit and Sustainability Rules, or PSR).
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Chelsea to pay Leicester City £10m for Maresca
According to The Sun, Chelsea will pay £10m to prise Maresca away from Leicester.
That fee will be paid out just weeks after the club spent almost exactly the same amount to dismiss Mauricio Pochettino.
Pochettino himself was the successor Graham Potter, who arrived for a fee of £21.5m in September 2022 before being handed a £13m compensation package upon his dismissal seven months later.
The first manager of the Boehly regime, Thomas Tuchel, got a £13m pay-off, while his backroom staff banked another £2m.
That takes the total amount Chelsea have spent on hiring and firing managers under Boehly and Clearlake to an eye-watering £69.5m.
For context, that figure exceeds almost half of all Premier League clubs’ yearly wage bills and is nearly three times as much of that of Luton Town’s.
It is the record for any club worldwide in terms of hiring and firing managers over any given two-year period – and by some margin.
Football finance analysis: How will this affect Chelsea’s FFP standing?
Analysis from Off The Pitch shows that, based on last season’s accounts, Chelsea could be as much as £248m over the acceptable loss limit under the Premier League’s imminent new FFP system.
With an extra £20m spent on hiring and firing managers since their last financial statement, that figure rises to £268m.
In reality, the final figure will be more modest than that as Chelsea have tried every trick in the book to work around the rules.
This has included the sale of two on-site hotels for £76m which as well as part of their Cobham training complex.
The club is briefing that they are able to spend again this summer, but their approach will eventually catch up with them if they do not return to top-tier European football soon.
It is also inevitable that the Blues’ will have to rein in their spending and trim what has become a squad bloated with underperforming and high-earning signings.