STAMFORD BRIDGE — Chelsea are concerned that they will fall foul of Financial Fair Play regulations if they are forced to operate under government restrictions for an extended period of time.
The cracks of a drab performance against Newcastle were papered over by Kai Havertz’s 89th-minute winner on Sunday but football felt distinctly secondary to proceedings at Stamford Bridge.
The stadium was only open by virtue of an amendment to the terms under which Chelsea are operating with their spending limit raised from £500,000 to £900,000 on each match day.
However, the Blues are still not allowed to sell tickets for games and have also seen some corporate credit cards frozen by risk-averse banks.
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Chelsea are understood to operate on the very edge of FFP guidelines, which essentially stipulate that clubs can only spend as much money as they generate in revenue, and they will be unable to get anywhere near £2m they usually turn over per home game under current restrictions.
Chelsea also face the prospect of losing lucrative sponsorship deals, although their shirts still bore the logo of Three on Sunday despite requests to remove it from the communications giant. i understands cover-ups on the shirts do not work and under the terms of the asset freeze, Nike are unable to sell Chelsea new shirts.
The club are of course also still allowed to pay their players, although they might think they did not get much value for money on Sunday.
It took nearly 80 minutes for Chelsea to record a shot on target, a header from Kai Havertz that was straight at Martin Dubravka, and while the Germany international did brilliantly to control instantly a long ball from Jorginho 10 minutes later and then finish, Newcastle will claim he should not have been on the pitch – and that they should have been 1-0 up as two separate VAR decisions went against them.
Six minutes before half-time Havertz collided with Dan Burn when challenging for a header, elbowing the towering defender in the face. VAR did look at the incident but i understands they deemed that he used his arm for leverage, rather than as “a weapon”, and that Darren Coote was within his rights to only to brandish a card that was yellow rather than red.
Newcastle manager Eddie Howe said he could almost tolerate that, but the failure to award his side a penalty in the second half when Nathaniel Chalobah brought down Jacob Murphy left him “hugely disappointed”.
“Jacob has had the shirt ripped off his back, near enough. He goes down in the box, clear penalty,” Howe said.
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“Even if referee doesn’t give it on the pitch, I sort of understand that, but then VAR should see it and at least make the referee go and review his own decision because I think if he does, he realises he’s got it wrong.”
Miguel Almiron came closest to scoring for Newcastle, forcing a strong two-handed save from Edouard Mendy with a beautifully struck volley shortly before half-time, and Fabian Schar will think he should have done better with a header at the back post when unmarked.
As it was though, Chelsea bagged their fifth Premier League win in a row and virtually confirmed that, barring something unforeseen – not impossible, given the circumstances – they will be in the Champions League next year: they are nine points clear of Manchester United and have a game in hand.
However, merely arriving at Champions League matches is a challenge at the moment. The spending limit on travel remains at £20,000 per game but the club are understood to be in daily conversations with the Government about raising that figure because it is well under what is required to move the whole team and support staff safely and securely to games.
Manager Thomas Tuchel joked that he would even drive the minibus to France himself next week if that was what he needed to do for his side to fulfil their fixture against Lille on Wednesday night.
“If you asked me like 20 or 30 years ago if I would join the Champions League match on the sideline and what I was what I was willing to do, I would say ‘okay, when do I have to be there?’,” Tuchel said.
“Why should this change?
“My last information was that we have a plane and we can go back by plane. If not, we go by train. If not, we go by bus. If not, I drive the seven-seater.”
It may yet come to that.
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