Chelsea have missed out on a potential £400m over the last 15 years by releasing future stars from their academy too early.
Failing to give professional contracts to the likes of Jamal Musiala, Declan Rice, and Michael Olise has deprived the club of millions in pure profit sales, on top of missing out on quality players, data from Transfermarkt has shown.
The lost revenue is a blow to the West London club, who have used academy sales extensively to alleviate the pressure of Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
However, several prominent Chelsea journalists believe the famous Cobham academy remains a huge asset to the club.
Chelsea FC journalist Nathan Gissing said: “It’s inevitable that you’re going to have players slip through cracks.
“It shouldn’t happen, but hindsight is a beautiful thing. Players peak at different times, and sometimes the environment just isn’t right.
“However, Chelsea should have given the players they scouted more of a chance.”
These ten names were all released for free, or a small compensation fee, and have gone on to reach a value of more £10m.
Eight of those have also commanded transfer fees since, which total more than £270m.
Rice was released at 14 as he was too small, before West Ham picked him up and sold him for almost £100m to Chelsea’s rivals Arsenal.
Olise also left at 14, joining Manchester City’s youth setup, before Crystal Palace eventually sold him for over £40m.
Dominic Solanke and Rhian Brewster both left to join Liverpool, who made handy profits on the pair, while Eddie Nketiah joined Arsenal’s academy after being told he was too small before being sold by the Gunners for £25m.
Musiala, commanding an eye-watering current value of £117m, left London for Bayern Munich for a mixture of family reasons, Brexit, and seeing a better path into the first team in Bavaria.
And it’s this issue that journalist and Chelsea academy expert Felix Johnston thinks is Chelsea’s biggest concern with Cobham.
He said: “You can’t always predict how players are going to turn out, but they’ve been prioritising too many international talents rather than showing academy players a pathway.
“Little moments that seem insignificant, such as playing five minutes in a cup, can mean a lot. It can show a pathway to players, and that’s been a missed opportunity.
“But you can’t keep everyone. And sometimes it’s just a result of your success.”
The danger for Chelsea is their youngsters start looking away from the Blues earlier as they anticipate difficulties in getting first-team minutes, and this may already be happening.
Rio Ngumoha and Ryan McAidoo were two highly touted talents at Cobham who both left to Premier League rivals Liverpool and Manchester City respectively in 2024.
If these players keep leaving for free or nominal fees, then not only will Chelsea have to replace them with expensive foreign youth, but they can also expect that missed talent figure of £400m to keep rising.
Johnston said: “Just because a Brazilian footballer did a rainbow flick doesn’t mean they need to be signed for £50m.
“Obviously, that’s not what Chelsea are doing, but some signings they’ve made are pretty clearly not the best young players.”
Gissing echoed this, saying: “Signing all these kids in the same positions as our academy players must be disheartening for them.”
Players like Deivid Washington, a Brazilian brought from Santos for £17m, disrupt pathways for youngsters, meaning they look elsewhere for minutes, and possibly onto bigger things.
And this isn’t exclusive to academy players, with Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, and Mohamed Salah all examples of big name players finding their best form after leaving west London.
Hence, Chelsea have often been accused of selling its prospects too soon, and this graph shows how some academy players were let go before they reached their peak transfer value.
Marc Guehi almost doubled his value after leaving Chelsea for Palace, but after Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021, it was always going to be difficult for Geuhi to break into the squad.
Callum Hudson-Odoi is almost worth seven times the amount the Blues let him go for, while Nathan Ake also nearly doubled his value after leaving.
While Mason Mount, Conor Gallagher, and Ian Maatsen were all arguably sold for impressive fees, Johnston was keen to highlight Lewis Hall, Omari Hutchinson, and Tino Livramento as illustrations of Chelsea’s recent academy mismanagement.
He said: “Hutchinson had the perfect loan at Ipswich, and yet he was always going to be sold. It sends a message that loans are just for marketing, which doesn’t set the best precedent.”
Hall and Livramento were sold in the midst of then new owner Todd Boehly’s spending spree, who has exploited pure profit and contract amortisation rules to spend €1.3bn since he took over in May 2022.
Hall was sold shortly after signing a seven-year contract, and his €33m fee makes up part of Chelsea’s €478.5m generated from academy sales over the last decade, a figure larger than Arsenal’s total for all player sales in the same period.
Although this has allowed for several big players to join like Cole Palmer, who likely wouldn’t have done so without this PSR exploit, not everyone is in favour of this strategy.
“I see it as an indictment of a badly run club if you need to sell your academy players with the volume and desperation of Chelsea,” said Johnston. “There has to be a middle ground.”
Gissing added: “With so many FFP rules now, I think you’ve got to balance the books somehow. The club deep down don’t want to sell, but they have to.”
Chelsea’s sister club Strasbourg has given more opportunities for players to stay contracted to Chelsea while playing senior football.
The UEFA Conference League has also provided minutes for youngsters Tyrique George and Josh Acheampong, showing that despite the bloated squad, Cobham can still produce first-team squad members.
Johnston said: “It’s still one of, if not the best academies in England, and one of the best academies in the world.
“Everyone at Cobham has a common goal, winning, but it’s a family setup in the academy.
“There’s a standard of excellence in every single department, giving players a very well-rounded footballing education, which is why you see Cobham graduates prospering all over the world.”
Cobham’s success largely comes from Neil Bath and Jim Fraser, who spent over 30 years in West London, overseeing five consecutive FA Youth Cups from 2014-18, before leaving in July last year.
So will Chelsea continue to sell up talent to fund foreign players? Or will they shift back to the academy focus that brought success to Frank Lampard and Thomas Tuchel under then owner Roman Abramovich?
Johnston said: “Next summer will be telling. Will the players that have broken through this season be treated equally and fairly, or will they be sold yet again?
“I hope Chelsea have turned the tide.”
Featured image credit: Andrewi via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 licence
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