In the words of late ’90s Harlem hip-hop artist Ma$e: “save your money for drinks I’m about to buy bar.” That’s exactly what Chelsea FC did this January transfer window, spending like a drunken sailor or businessman with an unlimited expense account.
Billionaire Todd Boehly allocated more than €300 million for the acquisition eight new players, led by the record-breaking signing of Enzo Fernandez for €121 million.
That sum converts to $131m or £106m, and that is the most ever spent by a British club for any one player. Manchester City, in the summer of 2021, are the only other English club to drop £100m on an individual footballer, paying exactly that sum to Aston Villa for Jack Grealish.
Other big buys from Stamford Bridge include Mykhailo Mudryk (€70m), Benoit Badiashile €37m) and Noni Madueke (€35m), among others.
According to Sports Business Group division of Deloitte, the Premier League clubs as a whole spent a record £815 million ($1 billion) this past window. And Chelsea obviously led the way, being responsible for 37% of that grand total, but here is the craziest stat of all.
Stamford Bridge’s spending alone was equivalent to more than the combined net spends of all clubs combined in the German Bundesliga, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1.
Actually, maybe a crazier stat is the total spend when you combine this window with the last summer transfer window.
In the two transfer windows that Boehly has been in charge, Chelsea expenditures on new players have been north of 500 million GBP. That converts to $615,000,000.
Yes, more than half a billion Great British Pounds Sterling (not just Raheem Sterling).
Below, where highlighted, you can read more about each new player acquired.
Chelsea FC January Transfer Window Recap
Incomings
David Datro Fofana (Molde)
Benoit Badiashile (Monaco)
Andrey Santos (Vasco da Gama)
Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid) Loan
Mykhailo Mudryk (Shakhtar Donetsk)
Noni Madueke (PSV Eindhoven)
Malo Gusto (Lyon)
Outgoings
Bashir Humphreys (Paderborn) Loan
Malo Gusto (Lyon) Loan (yes, we had to list him out twice, it’s complicated)
Cesare Casadei (Reading) Loan
Jude Soonsup-Bell (Tottenham Hotspur)
Jorginho (Arsenal)
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now. Follow the website on Twitter and Instagram.