Chelsea

Dr Galen

Was talking the other night about Chelsea and how their money has changed the face of football across Europe etc etc etc and the point was raised about what will happen if and when Roman gets bored and sells up?

How will he sell the club and who will buy it considering how it operates at a loss at present, and possibly for the forseeable future?

Any CHelsea fans have an opinion?

Dont be at yourself

Chelsea aim to be profitable in 3 years time, I believe. I think we'll soon see an end to them paying the likes of 30 million pounds for Shevchenko, and we'll start seeing a return on their investment in youth. That, and they're exploring building a new stadium, so that will generate further revenue.

AnCapaillMor

Kenyon said the idea was to be profitable in 8-10 years, kenyon is slime but if anyone can make them profitable it's him, romans best signing there.

PHB

Chelsea in it's current form is unsustainable, for one reason only, wages.
To make it as an actual club they need drastically cut wages

growler

PHB wrote:

Chelsea in it's current form is unsustainable, for one reason only, wages.
To make it as an actual club they need drastically cut wages

or make more money.


Why do so many assume that Roman will get bored and sell up anyway? The guy goes to every game, he seems to really enjoy himself, if i was a billionaire football fan I can't think of a better way to spend my money and my time (well I could think of some pleasant distractions in between).

Rollo Tamasi

PHB wrote:

Chelsea in it's current form is unsustainable, for one reason only, wages.
To make it as an actual club they need drastically cut wages

pay parity will destroy them. I'd say that they currently have about 5 players earning more than 100,000k per week
Terry
Lampard
Ballack
Shevi
Cole (if he joins)

And a load more on 70,000k. Any new superstar that comes and gets paid a bumper deal then Lampard and Terry will be want parity no doubt. It's ridicilious and in my opinion is going to cause a lot of enternal bitching and distrubtion.

Unearthly

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

Chelsea aim to be profitable in 3 years time, I believe. I think we'll soon see an end to them paying the likes of 30 million pounds for Shevchenko, and we'll start seeing a return on their investment in youth. That, and they're exploring building a new stadium, so that will generate further revenue.

Yep thats the plan, have a huge stadium, loads of new fans, and to be one of the most famous clubs in the world where they can live without Roman.

iregk

What people tend to forget in all of this is one thing. Roman is a business man at the end of the day. People in business don't generally put in huge investment without looking for some sort of return.

Lets not kid our selves for a minute here but the Chelsea Roman took over was is a huge amount of disarray. It was virging on bankrupcy, had an ageing squad and an image problem, in so far as it had no image for the global market place. So drastic measures would be required. Since he came in they have gotten rid of a lot of contracts that were worthless and repalced them with lucrative ones. Huge investment in the youth system and training centers was made thus aiding future generations. They have also gotten rid of the old school conservative board and agency staff and replaced them with astitue globally minded people.

In short what he has done is invest huge to ensure short term success whilst planning for long term in the back ground. Chelsea will change hugely in the next few years and they will become profitable. They are now one of the if not the most talked about and recognised clubs in the world! 5 years ago we would not have had a Chelsea thread on boards, now we do! Personally I believe Chelsea are going to be around, not necessarily winning everything, for the forseeable.

jesus_thats_gre

iregk wrote:

In short what he has done is invest huge to ensure short term success whilst planning for long term in the back ground. Chelsea will change hugely in the next few years and they will become profitable. They are now one of the if not the most talked about and recognised clubs in the world! 5 years ago we would not have had a Chelsea thread on boards, now we do! Personally I believe Chelsea are going to be around, not necessarily winning everything, for the forseeable.

Said perfectly tbh..

The Muppet

iregk wrote:

What people tend to forget in all of this is one thing. Roman is a business man at the end of the day. People in business don't generally put in huge investment without looking for some sort of return.

It is cetainly not being run as a business at the moment, if it were it would be in a much worse position that Leeds were a few years ago and we know what happpened them.


It is undoubtably his hobby at the moment with him alledgedly trying to buy players because his son likes them , As long as his interest and financial backing continues Chelsea will be fine but if he gets bored winning things and the challenge and excitments dwindles he may well look elsewhere for his kicks, if that happens Chelsea will be in big trouble.

I don't believe he is in it to get any sort of return, Chelsea have lost more money selling players for less than they paid for them in the last three years than most teams have invested , Duff Veron, Mutu the list is endless . That is no way to run a profitable viable business.

iregk

Muppet, you didn't take into account anything that I wrote. I'm not talking about straight up return, i.e. buy duff for 17 sell him for 20. I'm talking long term return.

What seems to happen when people, both chelsea fans and otherwise, talk about Roman everything that is happening in the background gets ignored and people tend to voice their opinion on what they want to happen. i.e. roman gets bored and Chelsea get fed to the lions...

The Muppet

iregk wrote:

Muppet, you didn't take into account anything that I wrote. I'm not talking about straight up return, i.e. buy duff for 17 sell him for 20. I'm talking long term return.

What seems to happen when people, both chelsea fans and otherwise, talk about Roman everything that is happening in the background gets ignored and people tend to voice their opinion on what they want to happen. i.e. roman gets bored and Chelsea get fed to the lions...

I did read what you wrote but none of us can see into the future so it could go any of 3 ways, it continues as it is, Roman's hobby, it is put on a sound business footing as you suggest or he will get bored and find some other plaything as I suggest could happen. I hope it's either of the last two because the way it is at the moment is damaging the game.

SCULLY

iregk wrote:

What people tend to forget in all of this is one thing. Roman is a business man at the end of the day. People in business don't generally put in huge investment without looking for some sort of return.

Lets not kid our selves for a minute here but the Chelsea Roman took over was is a huge amount of disarray. It was virging on bankrupcy, had an ageing squad and an image problem, in so far as it had no image for the global market place. So drastic measures would be required. Since he came in they have gotten rid of a lot of contracts that were worthless and repalced them with lucrative ones. Huge investment in the youth system and training centers was made thus aiding future generations. They have also gotten rid of the old school conservative board and agency staff and replaced them with astitue globally minded people.

In short what he has done is invest huge to ensure short term success whilst planning for long term in the back ground. Chelsea will change hugely in the next few years and they will become profitable. They are now one of the if not the most talked about and recognised clubs in the world! 5 years ago we would not have had a Chelsea thread on boards, now we do! Personally I believe Chelsea are going to be around, not necessarily winning everything, for the forseeable.

Good post - On a side note , a few months back there was talk of CFC buying up earls court and building a new stadium (60000). How would such a move be affected by Chelsea Pitch owners (cpo), or were they bought out when Roman came on board?

iregk

Ok muppet I can agree with your last post there.

The cpo scully, thats a good question. I remember they came into play to prevent a property developer coming and and building apartments on the site a few years back but not sure if they are still in existance.

growler

SCULLY wrote:

Good post - On a side note , a few months back there was talk of CFC buying up earls court and building a new stadium (60000). How would such a move be affected by Chelsea Pitch owners (cpo), or were they bought out when Roman came on board?

CPO still owns the pitch at Stamford Bridge, if CFC do move to a new home that won't directly affect the CPO, what it will effect is chelsea's ability to sell the Stamford Bridge site for development as they would have to buy out or get the ok from the CPO to sell... which shouldn't a problem if it faciliates a move to a new and improved home.

Stamford Bridge as a site is worth a fortune.

marius

Abrahmovic has already spent well over £300 million on Chelsea. It is STILL running at a loss and will be doing so for the next while, Kenyon says 2 years but I doubt it. Even if Chelsea begin to turn a profit in two years time it will be ages before that profit is reasonable (say over £30 million). There is no way that Chelsea can be considered a legitimate investment for Abhramovic - he will be long dead before he ever sees his initial investment payed back. Chelsea is his play thing and when he gets bored they will be in trouble. On the bright side, Chelsea were in trouble before he came along and were in serious danger of going into administration so he cant leave it in a worse state than he got it. Chelsea fans should just enjoy the ride while it lasts....

Dr Galen

it was more the wages issue that i meant. fair enough Chelsea have invested in state of the art trainging and youth faciities but i'd wonder how many of the youth players will make the step up to the first team as long as the managr can buy anyone he wants. will the incentive for the next Wayne Rooney be there to move to Chelsea

evilhomer

nurse_baz wrote:

it was more the wages issue that i meant. fair enough Chelsea have invested in state of the art trainging and youth faciities but i'd wonder how many of the youth players will make the step up to the first team as long as the managr can buy anyone he wants. will the incentive for the next Wayne Rooney be there to move to Chelsea

If you look at the players that Morunihio buys at the minute they fall into two categories
1) Experienced, proven players of huge quality (Sheva, Ballack)
2) or players that are young and have huge potential (Essien, Kalou, Obi Mikel, etc..)

In a few years the likes of Ballack and Sheva will be gone and the younger generation of "wonderkids" that Morunhio bought in will be taking their places.

They certainly won't be getting payed 120k+ a week.

Kenyon and Abramovich are no mugs, they know whats going on. Even if Abramovich is only in it as a hobby, Kenyon certainly isn't and will do everything he can to make sure he still has a job if Abramovich gets "bored".

Attractive Nun

Abramovich doesn't seem to me like the type of guy to just get bored and leave the club in bits, he does seem to genuinely care about Chelsea in fairness.

PHB

or make more money.

That is just not possible. It would require them to make more money than Real Madrid or Man Utd or Juventus have ever, by about 150%
To be profitable Chelsea just have to cut wages, there is no question about it.
That's included with all the other stuff Chelsea need to do to become profitable, i.e. New Stadium, Youth Set-Up, Global Marketing

Dr Galen

evilhomer wrote:

If you look at the players that Morunihio buys at the minute they fall into two categories
1) Experienced, proven players of huge quality (Sheva, Ballack)
2) or players that are young and have huge potential (Essien, Kalou, Obi Mikel, etc..)

In a few years the likes of Ballack and Sheva will be gone and the younger generation of "wonderkids" that Morunhio bought in will be taking their places.

They certainly won't be getting payed 120k+ a week.

Kenyon and Abramovich are no mugs, they know whats going on. Even if Abramovich is only in it as a hobby, Kenyon certainly isn't and will do everything he can to make sure he still has a job if Abramovich gets "bored".

good overall point there, though i'd maybe disagree that they won't be getting big cash, say Obi Mikel makes the step up in the next 2 years, and is a major success, he'll probably look for huge cash to stay, and then the vicious circle of wage parity rears its head again

ronbyrne2005

I dont think abromovich is worried about the club being profitable etc, he has probably increased the value of the club by the amount he has spent, chelsea are now a world wide brand to an extent they werent before,if united are worth 800million chelsea cant be far behind with their property worldwide image/brand which is driven by their superstars, etc. I think many people dont realise that abramovich is located in london and running and controlling a london clubs for a reason, as are all the other russian million/billion-aires,his control of football clubs has little to do with footballing passion and all to do with self preservation and wealth preservation.

astrofool

Chelsea as a club isn't worth anything right now, you would have to give someone alot of money to take it off RA's hand's. The asset value of the players is being far outstripped by the wages being paid.

growler

astrofool wrote:

Chelsea as a club isn't worth anything right now

so you reckon that the asset value of the land at Stamford Bridge and Cobham, the resale values of the players, the income from 42000 fans paying an average of £45 for overr 25 home games a season, the money from sky for television rights, subscribtions to chelsea tv worldwide, sale of jerseys and other branded goods globally, and the hefty cheques from sponsors ..... don't add up to total wage paid ?

:rolleyes:

therecklessone

growler wrote:

so you reckon that the asset value of the land at Stamford Bridge and Cobham, the resale values of the players, the income from 42000 fans paying an average of £45 for overr 25 home games a season, the money from sky for television rights, subscribtions to chelsea tv worldwide, sale of jerseys and other branded goods globally, and the hefty cheques from sponsors ..... don't add up to total wage paid ?

:rolleyes:

You're right, he's wrong. Of course, you wouldn't have said it unless you knew it, would you?

More worrying is the ration of wages:turnover at Chelsea. 2004-05 accounts show wages @ 74% of turnover, thats simply unsustainable.

evilhomer

growler wrote:

the resale values of the players

The problem I have with that statement is that there are only 6-7 clubs in the world that could afford to take on the wage and transfer fee to buy these players if things do go pear shaped, which I don't believe they will.

Juve, Milan, Inter, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Man Utd and maybe Arsenal now in their new stadium.

With Juve in Seris B, you can probably discount them for a couple of seasons too.

Chelsea would be stuck with players that haven't performed on huge wages e.g. Leeds United (Seth Johnson, Erik Bakke).

astrofool

growler wrote:

so you reckon that the asset value of the land at Stamford Bridge and Cobham, the resale values of the players, the income from 42000 fans paying an average of £45 for overr 25 home games a season, the money from sky for television rights, subscribtions to chelsea tv worldwide, sale of jerseys and other branded goods globally, and the hefty cheques from sponsors ..... don't add up to total wage paid ?

:rolleyes:

So what you're saying is that if anyone else is to run Chelsea, they have to sell all the players, the land, and still get 42000 people a week to go there? If you sell the players you don't have the high wage to pay either, of course you're not left with much when a football club has no players. Fact is, no one could come in now, and actually run Chelsea as a business, and not lose money hand over fist. And that is of course assuming that RA would write off completely the money he's put into Chelsea, and not leave it as a debt on the club.

jesus_thats_gre

therecklessone wrote:

You're right, he's wrong. Of course, you wouldn't have said it unless you knew it, would you?

More worrying is the ration of wages:turnover at Chelsea. 2004-05 accounts show wages @ 74% of turnover, thats simply unsustainable.

It is sustainable in the short term.. As has been said, the younger players that Chelsea have bought will start making their way into the first team over the next 3/4 seasons. This will coincide with the really big earners retiring and the likes of Lampard and Terry will only have 2/4 seasons left in them. This will cause the wage bill to drop massively and the young players coming through won't be on anywhere the same money. At this stage, Chelsea will probably have established themselves and maintained themselves as one of the biggest clubs in the world and the likes of Barca, AC, United, Real or whoeevr will have a very hard time coaxing their squad away with big money deals.

Chucky the tree

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

And a load more on 70,000k. Any new superstar that comes and gets paid a bumper deal then Lampard and Terry will be want parity no doubt. It's ridicilious and in my opinion is going to cause a lot of enternal bitching and distrubtion.

Very unlikely.

Can you name one player who was playing regular first team football at a club that was winning trophies that asked for a transfer because they werent being paid enough?

Sure no other club can match there wages. Lampard cant turn around and say "i want 120,000 or else i am leaving".

where will he go? He knows no EPL team could afford his transfer fee and still agree to pay him that kind of money.

PHB

Can you name one player who was playing regular first team football at a club that was winning trophies that asked for a transfer because they werent being paid enough?

Roy Keane

Chucky the tree

i dont rememebr him handing in a transfer request. Also didnt he want to join for Celtic because he supported the club etc etc. But the offer united made was to good to turn down?

I seriously doubt Celtic were willing to match the wages united eventually offered him.

PHB

Back after the treble,
Roy Keane stated that if he didn't become A. 90k a week B. The highest paid player at a club always(i.e. if somebody else get on higher wage, it was matched) he would leave the club.

Ping Chow Chi

If RA left today, this minute, then chelski would still be in a better position than they where in before he got there. And even if they are not, their fans still will have the memories of winning the prem etc.

Please RA, if you get bored of Chelski, come and pump some of your cash in my belovied Forest :x

As a neatural whoes team is outside of the prem, I think it is ace that there is now another big club who is bringing football stars into the prem, makes watching match of the day more fun if nothing else!

Chucky the tree

PHB wrote:

Back after the treble,
Roy Keane stated that if he didn't become A. 90k a week B. The highest paid player at a club always(i.e. if somebody else get on higher wage, it was matched) he would leave the club.

Must be a poker player so. Worked well for him.

PHB

then chelski would still be in a better position than they where in before he got there.

That's not true at all.
If AM left there would have to be a fire sale of players and if that didn't happen, they'd probably have to sell their stadium.

therecklessone

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

It is sustainable in the short term...

...if the plan works out.

Its obvious RA wants a CL, will he settle for a few more PL titles and a lower wage bill if it means little or no European success?

jesus_thats_gre

therecklessone wrote:

...if the plan works out.

Its obvious RA wants a CL, will he settle for a few more PL titles and a lower wage bill if it means little or no European success?

It is fairly obvious that the plan is working out very well.. They have an amazing squad of players that are arguably being held back by their managers tactics (they are by no means dependent on Jose). Their fan base if growsing massively. They are winning the premiership with relative ease. Their revenues are growing and growing..

Yes, it is a risk but it certainly does not look like it is back firing yet.

therecklessone

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

It is fairly obvious that the plan is working out very well...

Except the CL bit. Hence the arrival of Ballack and Shevchenko, hardly two players for the future.

Wasn't Jose happy with Drogba up front, thought he didn't want any superstar strikers signed...

growler

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

. This will coincide with the really big earners retiring and the likes of Lampard and Terry will only have 2/4 seasons left in them. .

what makes you think that a 26 year old terry has 4 seasons left in him?

growler

astrofool wrote:

So what you're saying is that if anyone else is to run Chelsea, they have to sell all the players, the land, and still get 42000 people a week to go there? If you sell the players you don't have the high wage to pay either, of course you're not left with much when a football club has no players. Fact is, no one could come in now, and actually run Chelsea as a business, and not lose money hand over fist. And that is of course assuming that RA would write off completely the money he's put into Chelsea, and not leave it as a debt on the club.

no, what i'm saying ( and hope I demonstrated) is that your statement that "chelsea as a club isn't worth anything right now " , is total bollox.

recklessone: I think that the Bllack and Sheva moves have more to do with building a gloabl brand with interest from further afield by having international "superstars" in the squad. Simply having the Germans, Ukrainians, Italians and Russians watching Chelsea helps sell the club as a brand to sponsors and corporates..... which is the only way to maximise revenues from a relatively small stadium without pricing the normal fan out of the game.

evilhomer

growler wrote:

what makes you think that a 26 year old terry has 4 seasons left in him?

Read his post properly.

jesus_thats_gre

therecklessone wrote:

Except the CL bit. Hence the arrival of Ballack and Shevchenko, hardly two players for the future.

Wasn't Jose happy with Drogba up front, thought he didn't want any superstar strikers signed...

Exactly, not for the future.. Their wages are not for the future either.. Considering they are the 2 biggest earners at the club, you sort of proved my point..

But yes, the CL bit is the only bit lacking.. However, out of a few seasons they have won the PL and Carling Cup. The CL will happen in a matter of time and you are kidding yourself if you honestly do not think it wont happen soon.

jesus_thats_gre

evilhomer wrote:

Read his post properly.

What he said!!

jesus_thats_gre

PHB wrote:

Back after the treble,
Roy Keane stated that if he didn't become A. 90k a week B. The highest paid player at a club always(i.e. if somebody else get on higher wage, it was matched) he would leave the club.

I am sure at the time he pretty much knew he was not replaceable.. United were the biggest in England at the time but they were never the best club in the world for 2 or 3 seasons running. Real were the biggest by a long shot during that period.

PHB

Indeed, but since we're talking about CHelsea, the same thing applies

growler

evilhomer wrote:

Read his post properly.

apologies. my bad.

Rollo Tamasi

Chucky the tree wrote:

Very unlikely.

Can you name one player who was playing regular first team football at a club that was winning trophies that asked for a transfer because they werent being paid enough?

i didn't say anything about transfer requests

Chucky the tree

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

i didn't say anything about transfer requests

You said it would cause disrubtion and internal bitching. A player wont start bitching. If they do they will just be told that if they arent happy with their contract they can just leave then.

The player will realise that its very unlikely another club will be able to afford his wage demands so the bitching will suddenly stop.

Also, United, Arsenal and Liverpool all seem well able to manage alot of players who are on different wage structures. None of those clubs have internal bitching.

Rollo Tamasi

arsenal,liverpool and utd are very different from chelsea. Chelsea seem to be promoting a type of gold rush in football terms, i have no doubt that it's going to rub off on the players too

Chucky the tree

didnt rub off on the united players when they gave keane 90k a week, or when they gave rio 120k a week.

growler

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

arsenal,liverpool and utd are very different from chelsea. Chelsea seem to be promoting a type of gold rush in football terms, i have no doubt that it's going to rub off on the players too

not sure how they are different exactly, but if anything the chelsea wage structures would destabilise the other clubs as their stars look for more cash or compare what they are getting to what they might get at chelsea (like A Cole).