Mendy (+£8.2m) and £78.2m total: Chelsea profit/loss and book values ahead of June 30 deadline

Chelsea have made an £8.2m profit on Edouard Mendy but Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s sale to Milan is bloody useless. We’ve looked at the profit/loss of the players sold in 2022/23 and the book values of those up for grabs before the June 30 deadline…

‘They’ve got to balance the books’ is common football parlance these days, usually used with very little knowledge of the financial situations of the actual clubs. Essentially we assume selling clubs are book-balancing clubs.

We don’t really know what’s going on. Financial reports take years to emerge, meaning we’re always behind the eight-ball and, in reality, only the club bean counters have a true picture of just how f***ed they are or otherwise.

We can guess though, and do. Currently, if you’re a Serie A club you’re frantically balancing books, as are most La Liga sides, with Barcelona chief among them. And we don’t require a financial expert to tell us that that the Chelsea accountants have a hefty workload right now.

The Blues have until June 30 to sell players and offset some of the ludicrous money spent in the 2022/23 season. Unfortunately for Chelsea, most of the major European leagues aren’t open for transfer business until the start of July, but fortunately for Chelsea, Saudi Arabia are, much to the consternation of their understandably sceptical rivals.

We don’t know how much Chelsea need to make before the deadline but it must be a fair whack given their apparent willingness to sell their best players to Premier League rivals. Anyway, the clock is ticking, and we’ve looked at how much they’ve made through player sales this season so far and what they could stand to gain through further departures.

The ‘book value’ of each player is their remaining amortised value. For example, Timo Werner joined Chelsea for £45m on a five-year contract and left after two years, meaning he had £27m of remaining amortised value. In order to record a profit through a player sale, clubs need to sell them for more than this remaining amortised value. So although buying Werner for £45m and selling him two years later for £25m sounds terrible, in the books it went down as just a £2m loss.

Most of the players listed are either fully amortised or, in the case of the Cobham graduates, cost nothing to acquire. Subsequently their book values are listed as ‘n/a’ and their sales would count as pure profit.

We start with the players already sold, or very nearly sold, pending medicals…

Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £15m
Profit/loss: +£15m

He’s currently in Milan undergoing a medical. Everything’s agreed, and Chelsea’s second longest-serving player is on his way. Unfortunately it can’t technically be completed until July, so won’t be included in the 2022/23 numbers.

Edouard Mendy
Book value: £8.8m
Sale price: £17m
Profit/loss: +£8.2m

The Best Fifa men’s keeper for 2021 leaves the club just two years later having somehow fallen bellow Kepa Arrizabalaga in the pecking order. He’s off to Al-Ahli.

Cesar Azpilicueta
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £0m
Profit/loss: £0m

Asked to be released from his contract, which had a year left to run, and Mauricio Pochettino has agreed to let the club legend go to Inter for nothing.

Kai Havertz
Book value: £24.8m
Sale price: £65m
Profit/loss: +£40.2m

Bought for £71m in the summer of 2020 and sold for £6m short of that after a Champions League winning goal but relatively little else. He may well be brilliant for Arsenal, but this is a big FFP win.

Mateo Kovacic
Book value: £8m
Sale price: £25m
Profit/loss: +£17m

It feels like Manchester City have got a bit of a bargain for a player of his quality but needs must.

Kalidou Koulibaly
Book value: £24m
Sale price: £17m
Profit/loss: -£7m

Chelsea surely could have squeezed the Saudis for Koulibaly’s book value but his ridiculous wages of close to £300,000 per week may have been a sticking point and a good reason to get rid.

Hakim Ziyech
Book value: £13.2m
Sale price: £8m
Profit/loss: -£5.2m

Paperwork issues prevented Ziyech moving to PSG in a loan-to-buy transfer in January but he’s now p*ssed off to Saudi. Mauricio Pochettino may well have ceded half his own paycheck to not have the Moroccan sulking around the training ground.

Timo Werner
Book value: £27m
Sale price: £25m
Profit/loss: -£2m

Probably would have been top scorer had he stayed, having got 16 for RB Leipzig and considering how God-awful Chelsea’s other forwards were, but we had seen enough of Werner to know he was never going to be the 20-plus-goals-a-season striker the Blues needed.

Emerson Palmieri
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £13m
Profit/loss: +£13m

A good deal for everyone.

Jorginho
Book value: £10m
Sale price: £12m
Profit/loss: +£2m

Made a £2m profit in January on a player they would have lost for nothing this summer. Smart.

Billy Gilmour
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £9m
Profit/loss: +£9m

Barely played initially for Brighton but looked more at ease at the end of the season under Roberto De Zerbi. Chelsea may well regret letting him go for just £9m but cash is king.

Michy Batshuayi
Book value: n/a
Sale price: £3m
Profit/loss: +£3m

No book value as he joined Chelsea in 2016 for £33m and signed a five-year contract. Got as much as they could for a player they would happily have seen leave for diddly squat.

Romelu Lukaku
Book value: £58m

Reports claim he was included in this uncomfortable five for £100m offer from Saudi but he’s turned them down. Chelsea will do very well to get anywhere near £58m for him.

Marc Cucurella
Book value: £45m

Current Newcastle sporting director Dan Ashworth signed Cucurella for Brighton from Getafe and reports suggest he’s again interested. £45m seems unlikely though, given the Spaniard forgot how to play football for 12 months.

Christian Pulisic
Book value: £11m

Milan are supposedly in talks to sign the American international.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Book value: £6m

Surely Chelsea can persuade the Saudis to pay £10m for him? He’s really good guys, honest.

Armando Broja
Book value: n/a

Brighton are supposedly interested in Broja as a potential makeweight in the Moises Caicedo deal but Mauricio Pochettino wants to see him in pre-season. That’s going to a bit of a problem in general for Poch, who needs to decide who can be sold before the deadline without actually seeing them in action.

Mason Mount
Book value: n/a

Chelsea could have done with this negotiation happening rather more quickly than it has.

Conor Gallagher
Book value: n/a

“I’m a Chelsea player and I love Chelsea,” said Gallagher on England duty, and you get the sense that he really does. Almost certainly more than the soulless b*stards in charge of Chelsea love him. A £40m bid from Newcastle or Spurs would probably be enough, while Brighton are also said to be keen, possibly as part of the deal for Moises Caicedo.

Callum Hudson-Odoi
Book value: n/a

Two Saudi clubs approached Hudson-Odoi on Tuesday and this one is making us feel more sick than most. He’s 22 years old FFS and had the world at his feet three years ago when Bayern Munich bid £50m for him. Don’t do it, Callum.

Baba Rahman
Book value: n/a

Here he is, Chelsea’s second longest-serving player, who’s made 23 appearances for them in eight years. Transfermarkt currently value him at £1m. They would take £1.

Trevoh Chalobah
Book value: n/a

“Obviously, I am still a Chelsea player, but you never know. I like it here in Italy, the weather is good, the people are nice, food is good, I am enjoying my time here,” Chalobah said while on holiday in Italy, and you could quite easily see him following fellow academy graduates Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham to Serie A. £25m would do it.