If you are a Chelsea fan, you can be both happy and angry right now. It has been that kind of summer.
A lot of good work has been done in the transfer window. Chelsea have brought in Morgan Rogers, who is one of the best attacking players in the Premier League.
They have also made a lot of profit on Andrey Santos after selling the midfielder to Manchester United for £50m.
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What about matters outside of the transfer market? Are Chelsea supporters satisfied with the other dealings at the club? Absolutely not.
For example, take the front-of-shirt sponsor situation. Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have owned Chelsea for four years now and are yet to secure a permanent front-of-shirt sponsor. It is really surprising that more has not been made of that.
They are missing a really good avenue of income. It is probably one reason why they are having to sell players in each window.
It puts more of an emphasis on generating money from player sales and other areas. Chelsea fans are having to pay £14.99 to watch their pre-season games, with director Daniel Finkelstein claiming on X that the club’s new CFC+ service is needed to help generate revenue so the team can compete. Nonsense.
It comes after Chelsea released Xabi Alonso’s first interview, which could only be watched by paid subscribers until the club had a change of heart.
Chelsea and seven other Premier League clubs have also been criticised for increasing the prices of their replica shirts.
“These price rises will leave many loyal fans wondering when enough is enough,” Consumer expert Scott Dixon was quoted as saying by The Independent. “We see this year in, year out, and it smacks of blatant greed and an own goal that could backfire on clubs. These kits are overpriced by anyone’s standards and will leave many fans priced out.”
It is not a good look, especially when you continue to choose not to have a front-of-shirt sponsor.
Of course, Chelsea will say that there are good reasons for the above. They are obviously waiting for a deal that they feel guarantees an appropriate amount of money.
No deal is better than a bad deal, business owners like Boehly and Eghbali will argue. But not having a front-of-shirt sponsor is hurting the club and the fans.
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