Chelsea's extraordinary summer transfer window could see as many as seven first-team players depart the club for Saudi Arabia. Edouard Mendy, N'Golo Kante, Hakim Ziyech, Romelu Lukaku, Calum Hudson-Odoi, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and Kalidou Koulibaly have all either already left, or are currently in talks with the league, but is there more to this than simple player exchanges?
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00:00 Last week, former Manchester United defender and current Mark from Peep Show to Jamie Carragher's
00:08 Jeremy from Peep Show, Gary Neville, called for an immediate transfer embargo to be put
00:13 on Premier League players moving to the Saudi Arabian Pro League. This plea for frankly
00:18 unprecedented action came in the wake of a seventh unwanted Chelsea player reportedly
00:23 agreeing terms with the league and being set to depart the club. The Premier League should
00:26 put an instant embargo on transfers to Saudi Arabia to ensure the integrity of the game
00:31 isn't being damaged, he told BBC Sport. Transfers should be halted until you look into the ownership
00:36 structure at Chelsea and whether there are beneficial transfer dealings that are improper.
00:41 The implication made by both him and now innumerable others is that Chelsea have struck up a relationship
00:46 with Saudi League authorities in order to turn their squad crisis into a financial opportunity.
00:52 But is there any truth in that? This is the controversial Chelsea and Saudi Arabia relationship
00:57 explained.
00:58 So, first off, the size of Chelsea's current first team squad is absurd. Assembled at never-before-seen
01:05 expense by several different managers and even two different owners, they found themselves
01:10 plummeting under the weight of it to a 12th-placed finish in last season's Premier League.
01:14 It derailed Thomas Tuchel's grand plan, stopped Graeme Potter from even getting started
01:18 on his, and left Frank Lampard with one of the worst managerial runs in top-flight history.
01:23 Whatever ideas Mauricio Pochettino had following his appointment, they're all relatively
01:28 pointless until this first issue is addressed.
01:30 The problem Chelsea faced then was not only trying to offload as many as 21st team players
01:35 this summer, but doing so and getting reasonable market value for them. Some players, like
01:40 Kai Havertz and Mason Mount, are highly sought after by rival clubs, but the bulk of the
01:44 others have displayed neither form nor fitness recently and would be near impossible to
01:48 recoup the outlay for. N'Golo Kante, Hakim Ziyech, Edouard Mendy, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
01:54 and Khalidou Koulibaly have all, for one reason or another, had poor seasons.
01:59 But all are also the wrong side of 30 with contracts that are winding down. That's
02:03 over £140 million spent to bring them in, with barely a fraction of that likely to come
02:08 back when moving them on. And that's if any sort of buyer could even be found in the
02:13 first place.
02:14 But then, something amazing happened. Hot on the heels of their purchase of Karim Benzema,
02:18 Saudi Pro League champions Al-Ittihad were reported to be in advanced discussions for
02:22 N'Golo Kante, despite him managing only seven league starts with fitness issues last
02:27 season. A great pick-up, the world declared, with Kante available on free this summer and
02:31 rivals Arsenal reported to be the only other club circling.
02:34 But then, something else amazing happened. Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassir side were
02:38 reported to be in negotiations with Chelsea over a £15 million deal for Hakim Ziyech.
02:43 What a stroke of good fortune. Another player potentially moving on, and this time they're
02:48 even likely to get a fair chunk of his initial fee back. Great business for a player who
02:52 only made six league starts last season.
02:54 But then, something else amazing happened, and something else amazing happened, and something
02:59 else amazing happened after that, and so on and so forth, until Aubameyang, Koulibaly,
03:04 Mendy, Hudson-Odoi and even the returning Romelu Lukaku were all reportedly considering
03:09 deals from clubs within the Saudi League, with Chelsea standing to suddenly and very
03:14 fortunately receive a major windfall out of what was otherwise a financial black hole.
03:20 So what's the problem? The Saudi League is an ambitious one looking to improve its
03:24 standing through the acquisition of much higher reputation players. Identifying a club in
03:28 Chelsea's situation, one desperately needing to offload a number of big-name stars in the
03:32 autumns of their careers, seems like a very shrewd place to do their shopping.
03:36 The issue though, and what Gary Neville was implying, was that there was potentially more
03:40 to this than meets the eye, and it all relates to the supposed business relationship between
03:44 Chelsea owner Todd Bowley and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, PIF.
03:49 As we've mentioned on the channel in our recent video exploring the long-term ambitions
03:53 of the Saudi League, there was a hugely significant ownership change with the top clubs last season.
03:58 The Big Four, Al-Itiad, Al-Nasir, Al-Hilal and Al-Ali were all taken under state ownership
04:03 by PIF, the same organisation that acquired Newcastle United. This then gave them access
04:07 to the country's near $500 billion investment fund without the financial fair play constraints
04:13 that their partners in the North East are currently subjected to. Hence the signing
04:16 of Benzema, the offers made to Salah and Messi and the developing situation with all of Chelsea's
04:21 players. That is where the money for this is coming from.
04:24 But PIF isn't merely an organisation that invests in sports. Their remit is to drastically
04:29 expand the financial and cultural influence of Saudi Arabia as a major player on the world
04:34 stage and diversify the country's economy away from being so reliant on oil. They've
04:39 got interests and indeed they've got money in virtually everything, including Clear Lake
04:45 Capital, an American private equity firm who specialise in acquiring companies it sees
04:49 as having significant growth potential, working with their existing staff to maximise that
04:54 growth and then selling the company for an enormous profit. One such project of theirs
04:58 you may have heard of is women's clothing label Ashley Stewart. Another one is Chelsea
05:03 Football Club. Following the fire sale conducted by Roman
05:06 Abramovich in the fallout of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, ownership of Chelsea passed to
05:10 the trio of Todd Bolley, Berard Egbali and Jose Feliciano. The former you're likely
05:15 familiar with, but the latter two are the original founders and current managing directors
05:20 of Clear Lake Capital. Not only that, but about two thirds of the money required for
05:24 the acquisition of the club came from the company. So does that mean that, as well as
05:28 in Castle United, the Saudi state also owns a part of Chelsea? Well, no, that's not
05:33 how private equity firms work, even if potentially some of their money could have been used in
05:38 the acquisition. There is no question here of a conflict of interest between the two
05:42 clubs' ownership models. The Premier League even obtained written assurances last year
05:46 that PIF were not involved in the move in any way and are said to be entirely satisfied
05:50 with the answers they got. What is alleged, however, is that such is PIF's involvement
05:55 with Clear Lake, and the money the company would stand to either make or lose through
05:59 their ownership of Chelsea, that they are proactively helping them to flout FFP restrictions
06:04 and inject major new investment through the purchasing of unwanted players at inflated
06:09 prices. Some would say that's financial doping, and by some it's currently the fans
06:13 of the clubs that have already benefited from Chelsea's recent demise and have no interest
06:18 in seeing them get their house in order. Certainly not if they did so sufficiently to challenge
06:22 at the top of the league again. But is there actually any truth in that? Well, yes and
06:28 no. Yes, definitely PIF are invested in Clear Lake, but given the way the company is structured,
06:33 it's almost certain to be a fraction of the overall financial make-up. Likewise, it'll
06:38 be an investment to PIF that accounts for only a tiny fraction, again, of their overall
06:43 operation. While they're almost certainly involved with each other, it's not an involvement
06:47 that would merit this sort of market manipulation. Likewise, while Todd Bowley's relationship
06:51 with PIF is undoubtedly making for some very smooth negotiations between Chelsea and teams
06:56 in the Saudi Pro League, there's virtually no difference between the business being conducted
07:00 here and that being conducted by any other club. Real Madrid and Wolves have already
07:05 sold players to the league, and Man City, Liverpool, PSG, Crystal Palace, Arsenal, Barcelona
07:10 and Man United all have players who are the subject of bids. Finally, there are rules
07:15 about paying over the odds. Every single transfer in English football that is over £1 million
07:20 is subject to an audit of sorts to ensure it's reflective of fair market value. So
07:25 even if there was some sort of under-the-table agreement between two clubs to exchange enormous
07:29 sums of cash under the masquerade of a transfer, it would still need to be the going rate.
07:34 The truth is, this is an arrangement that's come about at the absolute perfect time for
07:38 both parties. Chelsea need to trim their squad and rake back some of the money splurged last
07:43 season, and the Saudi League needs a batch of big-name players who'll be open to a lucrative
07:48 payday away from the more traditionally attractive leagues. It's bad news for Chelsea's rivals,
07:52 undoubtedly, but the inferences that there's something untoward going on seem to ignore
07:56 the boring reality of the situation. Chelsea have something the Saudi League needs, and
08:01 the Saudi League just so happens to be one of the few places that have the financial
08:05 power to actually afford it. Now whether or not things like this should be perfectly legal
08:09 under the current rules is another question entirely, but regardless, this almost certainly
08:15 is.
08:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]