Chelsea sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart have lifted the lid on their strategy to hand out lengthy contracts to new arrivals at Stamford Bridge.
Players have regularly been awarded deals into the 2030s under Todd Boehly's stewardship of the club, with Winstanley and Stewart integral parts of the recruitment team and the decisions to tie stars down for a longer period than their rivals.
Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson both signed new contracts this summer, extending their stay at Stamford Bridge until 2033, while the club have a total of 14 players registered on their books to and past 2030.
Related articles
Speaking to The Telegraph in a joint interview, Winstanley explained the process behind the unusual contracts: “People always sit and think ‘well that’s what we’ve always done, so that’s what we’ve always got to continue doing’. But without forward thinking and progression, everyone will stand still.
"So it’s a clever concept the owners implemented in the beginning and what they believed in. Once we looked at it together in isolation, we were like ‘yeah, you can definitely see how this can work’. And we believe in it.”
There had been the suspicion that the Blues were trying to circumvent the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability rules by amortising their transfer fees over seven-plus years, as opposed to the traditional player contracts of four or five seasons.
That loophole has since been closed by the league but the same length contracts continue to be handed out, with Winstanley adding: “Well, you’re not getting any benefit from a PSR position on it any more and we’ve still continued with it.
"So if it was just for PSR, we’d have stopped doing it. That was never at the forefront of the owners’ minds when we spoke to them about how we see it working, how we all see it working as a club.”
Stewart echoed those same sentiments: “It’s because the players, the talent and the value they have over the long term is really important to the clubs. “Really, it is the biggest nod towards the ability to identify talent.
"You’ve got to get that right if you’re going to put players on these long contracts and then it’s your ability to develop players and develop talent, and that’s one of the key things that we talk about internally, is to make our players better, across all of our teams.”
Enzo Fernandez, Joao Felix, Pedro Neto, Moises Caicedo, Mykhaylo Mudryk, Filip Jorgensen, Renato Veiga, Benoit Badiashile, Robert Sanchez, Noni Madueke, Malo Gusto, Romeo Lavia and Wesley Fofana join Palmer and Jackon in being locked into deals that extend into the next decade.
Many have perceived Chelsea's approach to recruitment under the new regime as 'scattergun' and left boss Enzo Maresca with a bloated squad upon his arrival to the club this summer from Leicester.
The Italian boss has been forced to use an entirely different team in Premier League and UEFA Conference League matches and even devised a 'bomb squad' during the summer transfer window, entirely made up of 13 players who were deemed surplus to requirements.
