Sterling can deliver as Chelsea’s top earner but his wages complicate other deals
By Liam Twomey
Raheem Sterling is to become the first signing of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital era and they have chosen their opening transfer statement wisely: a highly accomplished, proven Premier League performer in the middle of his prime years who addresses a key need in Thomas Tuchel’s squad.
An agreed fee of £47.5 million also suggests a triumph of negotiation for Boehly, who is still very much feeling his way in the European football transfer market as Chelsea’s interim sporting director. Sterling entering the final year of his contract at Manchester City provided both him and any suitor with valuable leverage, but Chelsea’s makeshift recruitment structure still moved with impressive assurance and speed to convince the player and find a financial framework that makes sense.
But that is not the sum total of Chelsea’s financial commitment in this deal. While most media coverage and fan conversation around transfers tends to focus on the fees being exchanged between clubs, that is not how clubs themselves calculate the cost of recruitment. Player wages are actually the more significant part of the equation because, unlike transfer fees, they are not amortised in the accounts, and if a transfer goes wrong, a bad salary is the hardest thing to shift.
Chelsea were reminded of that almost on an annual basis in the Roman Abramovich era and Romelu Lukaku’s return to Inter this summer provides a good recent case study. The fact that the Serie A giants could not offer anything close to a satisfactory transfer fee wasn’t ultimately much of an obstacle to a deal that was in the sporting interests of all parties. The problem was Lukaku’s status as top earner at Stamford Bridge on around £340,000 a week; in the end, he had to voluntarily take a 35 per cent pay cut for the coming season to make a loan back to San Siro feasible.
Nor did the lack of resale value hugely affect Boehly and Clearlake’s hopes of investing to significantly strengthen Tuchel’s squad in this window. Not being able to free Chelsea’s wage bill of Lukaku’s gargantuan salary, however, would have limited their recruitment power in much the same way that Mesut Ozil and, later, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, hampered Arsenal in the market.
Sterling, who will join Chelsea’s pre-season tour in Los Angeles on Wednesday before his signing is confirmed, has now effectively filled Lukaku’s salary spot. While it is impossible to be exact about the breakdown of a footballer’s wage without seeing their contract, several individuals with knowledge of the agreement have told The Athletic that the England international will be paid north of £300,000 a week when bonuses and performance incentives are factored in, in addition to a big signing-on fee. He is the new top earner at Stamford Bridge, with N’Golo Kante — who is entering the final year of a deal worth £290,000 a week — second in Lukaku’s absence.
There is every reason to think Sterling will be productive for the bulk of this contract, which commits him to Chelsea until the age of 32 with an option for a further year. He has been a valuable contributor to Premier League title-contending teams almost without interruption since he broke through as a dynamic teenager, first at Liverpool and then at City. Pep Guardiola elevated his game to new heights and, while his non-penalty goal returns have dipped with his minutes across all competitions in the last two seasons, he still represents a clear scoring upgrade on Tuchel’s current options:
It’s hard in any case to envision a repeat of the Lukaku mess. This is a player that Tuchel has explicitly targeted as a good fit for his system and style of play, rather than a recruitment compromise primarily born out of availability on the transfer market. It’s also difficult to imagine Sterling going the same way as Alvaro Morata or Kepa Arrizabalaga, losing belief under the weight of adversity and expectation at Stamford Bridge, given that he has proven on and off the pitch throughout his career that he is one of the most mentally resilient footballers of his generation.
Yet there is still risk here, beyond the possibility of significant injury that looms in the background for any player on any contract. Chelsea have agreed to pay Sterling at a level that suggests he can be their Mohamed Salah or Kevin De Bruyne, the best attacker in a team good enough to win the Premier League title. There have already been reports that he hopes to blossom into a Ballon d’Or contender during his time at Stamford Bridge, and it could well be within his capabilities — but it is also a level above what he has produced in his career to date.
Chelsea have effectively made a bet that Sterling still has room for growth in his game, and that Tuchel can be the coach to help him unlock it. It’s a smarter bet than Lukaku was, certainly in terms of football fit, but it is a bet nonetheless. It is also one that sets the bar for him to live up to his lucrative new contract formidably high, even if he is virtually guaranteed to help to some degree.
Sterling’s arrival will at least provide some reassurance to those already in the Chelsea squad who were waiting with some trepidation to see tangible evidence of the new owners’ ambition. He is a big name with a big resume, and a strong character to add to a dressing room that will suffer a big leadership drain if Cesar Azpilicueta ends up following Antonio Rudiger to Spain. Quality defensive reinforcements must follow to satisfy Tuchel and his key players, with The Athletic reporting yesterday that Chelsea are in talks to sign Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly, but it is a positive start.
The other ripple effect of bringing in Sterling as Chelsea’s top earner is that his contract will automatically become the new benchmark in all future player negotiations (the deal all others will be measured against). That does not mean the likes of Mason Mount and Reece James will necessarily require wage parity in order to sign long-term extensions at Stamford Bridge, but you can expect it to influence the upper bounds of what their respective camps will demand.
Boehly’s big early test beyond this transfer window is to get Mount and James to commit their futures to Chelsea, and people familiar with the process are not expecting talks to be straightforward. Both players are keenly aware that they have been consistently outperforming team-mates earning twice and even three times their wages, which also pale in comparison to their fellow high-profile England internationals.
Mount has two years left to run on a contract he signed in July 2019, before he had even made a senior appearance for Chelsea. Quite a lot has happened since then: he’s missed just nine Premier League games in three seasons, he’s been ranked consistently in the top three outfielders in the squad for minutes played across all competitions, he provided a decisive assist in a Champions League final, became a regular England starter and won the club’s Player of the Year award twice.
Only injuries have prevented James — whose current contract expires in June 2025, having been signed six months later than Mount’s extension — from registering similar game time. His unique blend of physicality and technical skill has made him indispensable to Tuchel as a right wing-back or right centre-back whenever fit, and in recent months he has staked a credible claim to be considered the most complete footballer at Stamford Bridge.
Both of their current deals top out short of £100,000 a week, which is staggering when compared with the mountain of dead or underperforming salary on Chelsea’s books; Timo Werner has not justified his £270,000-a-week salary and, while Kepa rediscovering his confidence last season was a positive development and a nice story, the fact that he earns more than double what Edouard Mendy does to be the Senegal international’s understudy is an ongoing issue.
Based purely on where they are as players, there is logic behind the suggestion that Mount and James’ new contracts should be roughly equivalent to Phil Foden’s latest extension at City, which is reported to triple his previous wages to around £200,000 a week. But that is not generally how contract negotiations work — relative value and leverage tend to be determining factors.
Chelsea, to put it bluntly, are not as good as City, so it’s not a stretch to argue that Mount and James are more valuable to Tuchel than even a spectacular young talent like Foden is to Guardiola. The leverage is also in their favour; as The Athletic reported in April, rival clubs in England and Europe are already monitoring both of their situations closely and, in several cases, pencilling them into their transfer wish lists for future windows.
Mount and James can both make credible cases to be considered worthy of elevation to the realm of Chelsea’s highest earners, and outside interest and the passage of time will only strengthen their positions. Sterling’s arrival is a double-edged sword: it acts both as reassurance that Stamford Bridge remains a place to compete for European football’s biggest prizes, and as a reminder of a wage structure that has too often prioritised high-profile signings over lower profile key contributors.
The ripple effects will be felt in the coming months but, if Sterling is able to deliver as Chelsea’s talisman, Boehly and Clearlake will be happy to navigate them.
https://theathletic.com/3416124/2022/07/13/sterling-chelsea-highest-wages/
Sterling can deliver as Chelsea’s top earner but his wages complicate other deals
By Liam Twomey
Raheem Sterling is to become the first signing of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital era and they have chosen their opening transfer statement wisely: a highly accomplished, proven Premier League performer in the middle of his prime years who addresses a key need in Thomas Tuchel’s squad.
An agreed fee of £47.5 million also suggests a triumph of negotiation for Boehly, who is still very much feeling his way in the European football transfer market as Chelsea’s interim sporting director. Sterling entering the final year of his contract at Manchester City provided both him and any suitor with valuable leverage, but Chelsea’s makeshift recruitment structure still moved with impressive assurance and speed to convince the player and find a financial framework that makes sense.
But that is not the sum total of Chelsea’s financial commitment in this deal. While most media coverage and fan conversation around transfers tends to focus on the fees being exchanged between clubs, that is not how clubs themselves calculate the cost of recruitment. Player wages are actually the more significant part of the equation because, unlike transfer fees, they are not amortised in the accounts, and if a transfer goes wrong, a bad salary is the hardest thing to shift.
Chelsea were reminded of that almost on an annual basis in the Roman Abramovich era and Romelu Lukaku’s return to Inter this summer provides a good recent case study. The fact that the Serie A giants could not offer anything close to a satisfactory transfer fee wasn’t ultimately much of an obstacle to a deal that was in the sporting interests of all parties. The problem was Lukaku’s status as top earner at Stamford Bridge on around £340,000 a week; in the end, he had to voluntarily take a 35 per cent pay cut for the coming season to make a loan back to San Siro feasible.
Nor did the lack of resale value hugely affect Boehly and Clearlake’s hopes of investing to significantly strengthen Tuchel’s squad in this window. Not being able to free Chelsea’s wage bill of Lukaku’s gargantuan salary, however, would have limited their recruitment power in much the same way that Mesut Ozil and, later, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, hampered Arsenal in the market.
Sterling, who will join Chelsea’s pre-season tour in Los Angeles on Wednesday before his signing is confirmed, has now effectively filled Lukaku’s salary spot. While it is impossible to be exact about the breakdown of a footballer’s wage without seeing their contract, several individuals with knowledge of the agreement have told The Athletic that the England international will be paid north of £300,000 a week when bonuses and performance incentives are factored in, in addition to a big signing-on fee. He is the new top earner at Stamford Bridge, with N’Golo Kante — who is entering the final year of a deal worth £290,000 a week — second in Lukaku’s absence.
There is every reason to think Sterling will be productive for the bulk of this contract, which commits him to Chelsea until the age of 32 with an option for a further year. He has been a valuable contributor to Premier League title-contending teams almost without interruption since he broke through as a dynamic teenager, first at Liverpool and then at City. Pep Guardiola elevated his game to new heights and, while his non-penalty goal returns have dipped with his minutes across all competitions in the last two seasons, he still represents a clear scoring upgrade on Tuchel’s current options:
It’s hard in any case to envision a repeat of the Lukaku mess. This is a player that Tuchel has explicitly targeted as a good fit for his system and style of play, rather than a recruitment compromise primarily born out of availability on the transfer market. It’s also difficult to imagine Sterling going the same way as Alvaro Morata or Kepa Arrizabalaga, losing belief under the weight of adversity and expectation at Stamford Bridge, given that he has proven on and off the pitch throughout his career that he is one of the most mentally resilient footballers of his generation.
Yet there is still risk here, beyond the possibility of significant injury that looms in the background for any player on any contract. Chelsea have agreed to pay Sterling at a level that suggests he can be their Mohamed Salah or Kevin De Bruyne, the best attacker in a team good enough to win the Premier League title. There have already been reports that he hopes to blossom into a Ballon d’Or contender during his time at Stamford Bridge, and it could well be within his capabilities — but it is also a level above what he has produced in his career to date.
Chelsea have effectively made a bet that Sterling still has room for growth in his game, and that Tuchel can be the coach to help him unlock it. It’s a smarter bet than Lukaku was, certainly in terms of football fit, but it is a bet nonetheless. It is also one that sets the bar for him to live up to his lucrative new contract formidably high, even if he is virtually guaranteed to help to some degree.
Sterling’s arrival will at least provide some reassurance to those already in the Chelsea squad who were waiting with some trepidation to see tangible evidence of the new owners’ ambition. He is a big name with a big resume, and a strong character to add to a dressing room that will suffer a big leadership drain if Cesar Azpilicueta ends up following Antonio Rudiger to Spain. Quality defensive reinforcements must follow to satisfy Tuchel and his key players, with The Athletic reporting yesterday that Chelsea are in talks to sign Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly, but it is a positive start.
The other ripple effect of bringing in Sterling as Chelsea’s top earner is that his contract will automatically become the new benchmark in all future player negotiations (the deal all others will be measured against). That does not mean the likes of Mason Mount and Reece James will necessarily require wage parity in order to sign long-term extensions at Stamford Bridge, but you can expect it to influence the upper bounds of what their respective camps will demand.
Boehly’s big early test beyond this transfer window is to get Mount and James to commit their futures to Chelsea, and people familiar with the process are not expecting talks to be straightforward. Both players are keenly aware that they have been consistently outperforming team-mates earning twice and even three times their wages, which also pale in comparison to their fellow high-profile England internationals.
Mount has two years left to run on a contract he signed in July 2019, before he had even made a senior appearance for Chelsea. Quite a lot has happened since then: he’s missed just nine Premier League games in three seasons, he’s been ranked consistently in the top three outfielders in the squad for minutes played across all competitions, he provided a decisive assist in a Champions League final, became a regular England starter and won the club’s Player of the Year award twice.
Only injuries have prevented James — whose current contract expires in June 2025, having been signed six months later than Mount’s extension — from registering similar game time. His unique blend of physicality and technical skill has made him indispensable to Tuchel as a right wing-back or right centre-back whenever fit, and in recent months he has staked a credible claim to be considered the most complete footballer at Stamford Bridge.
Both of their current deals top out short of £100,000 a week, which is staggering when compared with the mountain of dead or underperforming salary on Chelsea’s books; Timo Werner has not justified his £270,000-a-week salary and, while Kepa rediscovering his confidence last season was a positive development and a nice story, the fact that he earns more than double what Edouard Mendy does to be the Senegal international’s understudy is an ongoing issue.
Based purely on where they are as players, there is logic behind the suggestion that Mount and James’ new contracts should be roughly equivalent to Phil Foden’s latest extension at City, which is reported to triple his previous wages to around £200,000 a week. But that is not generally how contract negotiations work — relative value and leverage tend to be determining factors.
Chelsea, to put it bluntly, are not as good as City, so it’s not a stretch to argue that Mount and James are more valuable to Tuchel than even a spectacular young talent like Foden is to Guardiola. The leverage is also in their favour; as The Athletic reported in April, rival clubs in England and Europe are already monitoring both of their situations closely and, in several cases, pencilling them into their transfer wish lists for future windows.
Mount and James can both make credible cases to be considered worthy of elevation to the realm of Chelsea’s highest earners, and outside interest and the passage of time will only strengthen their positions. Sterling’s arrival is a double-edged sword: it acts both as reassurance that Stamford Bridge remains a place to compete for European football’s biggest prizes, and as a reminder of a wage structure that has too often prioritised high-profile signings over lower profile key contributors.
The ripple effects will be felt in the coming months but, if Sterling is able to deliver as Chelsea’s talisman, Boehly and Clearlake will be happy to navigate them.
https://theathletic.com/3416124/2022/07/13/sterling-chelsea-highest-wages/
