Chelsea are about to end a nightmare season. The London club, which both got rid of Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter during the season, is currently led by Frank Lampard temporarily and is in eleventh place in the Premier League, while on Tuesday there was an outing against Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Now the English newspaper Daily Mail reports that Chelsea’s likely failure to qualify for next year’s Champions League group stage will cost a number of star players.
According to the newspaper, the club’s latest new acquisitions and those who have agreed on new contracts during the new ownership period must now go down in salary by at least 30 percent. Since the change of ownership, twelve senior players have signed permanent contracts, while seven players have also signed for new terms, and are thus said to be affected by the fact that it does not look like there will be European games this autumn.
The reason is said to be that Chelsea’s new owners, led by Todd Boehly, introduced a bonus structure for player contracts linked to Champions League play to motivate players, but also to protect against reduced income in the event of failure to qualify for the tournament. It wasn’t like that before when Roman Abramovich owned the club.