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Chelsea plan spending spree
16/05/2007 12:22 - (SA)
Beijing - Jose Mourinho will have money to spend on strengthening his Chelsea squad in the off-season but it is likely to be less than last year, club chairperson Bruce Buck said on Wednesday.
Buck, an American lawyer who has worked with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich for nearly a decade, said a reduction in spending on new players was necessary if the club was to get close to its target of being "profitable" by 2010.
"A lot of it will depend on big money transfers, the less of those we make the easier it will be to meet our plan," he said.
"Every year our transfers have gone down... so we're making a lot of headway. Young fellows are coming up from the academy, we think, and we are moving towards a break-even model.
"I don't think we as fans - because that's what I am at heart - can expect unlimited funds from Mr Abramovich forever, that's ridiculous to even contemplate."
Chelsea have spent some 300 million pounds on new players since Abramovich started bankrolling the club in 2003 and posted losses of 80 million pounds in February.
Despite that, Buck said he thought they were on the right track to be "non-loss making" but possibly not by 2010.
"I don't think we'll make that plan," he said. "But we won't be far off."
Buck said the club had wanted to bring in a central defender in the January transfer window after the injury to club captain John Terry, but the prices quoted for their targets were too high.
"We looked at some players that we all liked, but the proposed financial arrangements weren't appropriate so we didn't do it," he said.
"There's one price for Mr Abramovich and one price for everyone else and we have to close that gap as much as we can.
"Even the person that sells us milk thinks we pay twice per pint than anyone else. We have to stop that."
Buck said there would be no demand that players were sold before purchases were made, but the club wanted to keep the squad down to 24 players.
"Every summer we'll have a couple of players in and a couple of players out," he said. "Everyone recognises in light of what we've been through this year, we'll probably need another central defender, maybe a striker and maybe a midfielder.
The fact that Chelsea would lose five players for up to six weeks to the African Nations Cup early next year would also have to be taken into account, he said.
"We could be pretty stretched in January... but we've been going down every year and that's my expectation this year in terms of aggregate spend," he said.
- Reuters
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