Chelsea have paid a British-record transfer fee of £117m for Morgan Rogers – but the full financial package will be worth much, much more.
Rogers officially signed for Chelsea after the conclusion of his World Cup campaign with England.
He played in all but one of Thomas Tuchel’s side’s seven matches.
One of his teammates, Elliott Anderson, is the man Rogers has just surpassed to become the most expensive signing in Premier League history.
Anderson agreed to sign for Manchester City for £116m barely a fortnight earlier.
The two deals are emblematic of the inflationary spiral in which the Premier League finds itself stuck.
But the transfer fee is just the start.
Chelsea’s full financial commitment in Rogers deal revealed
As well as £116m upfront, Chelsea will need to pay agents involved in the Rogers deal. As a bare minimum, these fees are 10 per cent of the value of the deal. And Chelsea tend to overpay – they have been the biggest spenders on agents in every season since the BlueCo takeover in 2022.
That’s another £11m or so there.
On top of that, deals between Premier League clubs incur a four per cent transfer levy, equating to just shy of £5m in Rogers’ case, since he came from league peer Aston Villa.
The real move, however, is wages.
Rogers will earn an absolute minimum of £200,000 per week at Chelsea, but individual and team performance-related bonuses and myriad other clauses will take the final amount much higher. The Premier League’s biggest earners – and Rogers is now among them – earn closer to £400,000 per week. Rogers is on a six-year deal, with the option to extend for a further 12 months.
Then, there are image rights, which can represent 10-25 per cent of the total value of a player’s contract.
Employer National Insurance adds another 15 per cent on top of what Chelsea pay Rogers.
All in all, HITC estimates that the total financial commitment made by Chelsea to be in the region of £220m – and that is a conservative appraisal.
“Effectively, you’re acquiring an SME,” football finance expert Professor Kieran Maguire told HITC, commenting on the figures.
“If I was investing in an SME, I would do a hell of a lot more due diligence than you see when it comes to these kinds of transfers. Less than 50 per cent of elite transfers are successful, and that is because of the lack of due diligence. Grealish to Manchester City has not been a success; Moises Caicedo has had one very good season but less so last season; Enzo Fernandez hasn’t been worth £100m; Barcelona have had a few failures at £100m-plus.
“When a club buys a player, they need to do more research than simply recognising that he is a good player and therefore thinking that his talent alone will make him a success at your club. Arsenal weren’t willing to pay that price.
“Chelsea’s owners like making statements and this is another statement.”
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