Chelsea signs Enzo Fernandez for Premier League-record $131 million
- by John Weaver , Feb 1, 2023
Chelsea has signed World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez from Benfica for a British-record 121 million euros ($131 million), the Portuguese club announced early on Wednesday.
The midfielder, 22, was named Best Young Player of the World Cup for his displays during Argentina's successful campaign in Qatar.
The fee eclipses the previous record of $123 million that Manchester City paid Aston Villa for Jack Grealish in 2021.
Fernandez only joined the Portuguese giants in July last year, for a reported fee of around $12 million.
He has signed an eight-and-half-year deal that will run until 2031.
American Todd Boehly's consortium has spent hundreds of millions since buying Chelsea at the end of last season in the hope that his extra splurge will lift the club from 10th place in the Premier League.
The Blues had already spent around £180 million ($222 million) with Ukranian winger Mykhailo Mudryk joining from Shakhtar Donetsk in a deal reportedly worth £88.5 million ($109 million). Chelsea also brought in forward David Fofana from Molde, defender Benoit Badiashile from Monaco, midfielder Andrey Santos from Vasco da Gama and PSV Eindhoven's winger Noni Madueke.
jw/dhc
© Agence France-Presse
For youth soccer fans and clubs. River Plate Enzo's youth club from about age 10 to 20-21 - with 9/10ths of the 5% FIFA Solidary cut for about $5.7M and since he is less than 23, they get training pay too, all the Training payments for a category 1 CONMEBOL club, totaling about $.5M, for $6.2 millions dollars - enough to run their academy for a decade. Further they put a 25% sell in the sale contract to Benefica, so they will pocket $32.75M more. A huge windfall, almost $40M. Great payday for River and Benfica. Benefica gets more, even though they had the player only a year. That's how it works. This is why guys like Enzo go back to their home clubs to finish their careers. He spent 10 years there, then, he helps finance the youth academy thru his success, paying for coaches and scouts and players to keep the club going forward. A lot of ugly in FIFA, but, this is one of the good things they do. Carry on!
Thanks for the info.
Interesting factoid - most could care less about - USA (USSF) did not properley register youth players with FIFA until beginniing in January of 2019. So if Enzo was American - a club could only be credited for 2019, 20, 21, 3-years, a fraction of the ammount River is getting. This is due to our pay-to-play program - AND - that USSF was making payments to all the MLS Academies since they started DA in 2007, so even though most, but not all, MLS Academies were free, they did not have to bear all the cost of training players. This is why they just go thru the motions - and let most of the boys go off to college and never hold staff accountable for producting first team players. The women - bless them - in their law suit - forced this unfair practice to stop. Remember all the girls since 2007 to 2018 - were paying in ECNL - with little or no money from USSF - which was dropping - look it up for yourself - $10M per year on MLS DA. We will see where this goes - the Solidarity and Transfer payments - but - someone is going to start collecting that money here - and when they do it will disrupt the youth soccer space.
Pretty indepth coverage. THanks.
Yes thanks, John Weaver and humble 1, that's what I was wondering.
What does Enzo Fernandez himself receive, both from the transfer and as salary with Chelsea?
Player does not get a cut. He or his agent may negotiate a signing bonus - that - is separate. The reason American players abroad for many years, the few we had/have (comparatively), and it was probably not them, rather their agents, seemed to not be in favor of paying the Solidarity and Training payments - was that - without those payments in a transfer - they could move be moved about relatively cheaper - and - maybe the agent would/could get a boost in their cut - that- the agent cut - is another story all together - one I know is important - but is a much more opaque transaction - without rules - stuff you learn by doing - not reading or studying. So - player gets nothing - but - remember Enzo - is part of a group of transfers - that is being accumulated by Chelsea - and they are all signing 10 year contracts. SA should publish a little peice on why this is being done. It is disrupting the FIFA player pay structure and will have a ripple effect. Have a nice day!