ONE YEAR CONTRACT EXTENSION AND THE POLICY OF CHELSEA FC FOR OVER 30 YEARS OLD

            It is not just for fancy football, financial stability and profit is important too.

The current football world is not just exercise for the players and entertainment for the fans alone. It is one of the biggest in sport industry, where lot of dollars and pounds are flying around for everyone involved, including players, coaches and the club management.  It is a money making machine scheme.

Thus, the intensity to rake more profits, make the clubs to be self sufficient, and attracts more global recognition, has attracted more analysis and reviews to help achieve these goals.

At Chelsea Fc, the idea of offering 30 years and above players one year contract extension has been in public domain for some time now. We at the footynomics are not sure when and on which player get started, but the guess could be the realization of the aftermath of Chelsea Fc to the Florent malouda contract debacle, the French international flying winger that was signed to the club at the summer of 2006 after his previous performances at Lyon and France national team at Germany 2006 World Cup, where they came runner up. The contract situation was so fierce that Chelsea Fc had to “banish” him to the reserve team for the remainder of his contact year after refusing to be transferred to another club. But the question is; are Chelsea Fc right to make this a policy or the decision should be looked on a case by case basis and not all tarred with the same brush, ignoring the context?

Well, considering we are in the era of FFP (Financial Fair Play) and one of the major goals of the club is to be financially stable and make profit, plus the fact the football is a game of strength and ability.  It makes sense to the club so as to avoid Malouda 2.0, make the players in that categories to be competitive, and easily phase out the aging ones with less cost and time.

However, considering special talent like Eden Hazard, there have been insinuation among the fans and soccer pundits  that Chelsea Fc will soon break their policy or find a means of accessing the situation individually so as not to lose a great talent and quality in the team. While there may be many loopholes and options to consider for the management without breaking their policy, one of the most sensible ones is to offer a renewed multiple years of contract to such special talents when they are in their late 20s, like 5 years contract to a 28/29 years old player which will run till they are 33/34, thereby given the club time to look and groom a like for like or better talent before phasing the aging ones out.

As for the players themselves, it gives them the opportunity of jumping ship easily at the later stage of their career without being tied down, or having to buy their contract in order to go to maybe final club to earn some fat pay cheque, try something new, or getting closer to their family.  In all, if analyzed critically without emotion, both party, that is the player and the club, will have a win-win situation.