PREMIER LEAGUE
Chelsea’s record manager compensation fee: how much did they pay Brighton for Graham Potter?
The Blues have hit the headlines for their spending on new players but also set a new record when recruiting Potter from Brighton.
Chelsea are no strangers to splashing the cash. Since LA Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly and his consortium bought the club in June 2022, it is estimated they spent a whopping $350 million in the January transfer window, when it is notoriously difficult to do sign new players. Add that to the business they did last summer and it is thought that they have parted with more than $600 million over the course of the last nine months. Not that you would know it from looking at the Premier League table…
Despite their lavish expenditure, the Blues are only just in the top half of the standings, behind the likes of Brentford, Fulham and, ironically, Brighton, whose manager they enticed to Stamford Bridge just a few games into the season. Graham Potter has not exactly been a roaring success so far since moving up to London, although he has guided Chelsea into the Champions League quarter-finals; they may have to win the tournament if they are to appear in next season’s edition, as they have 11-point gap to make up to the Premier League’s top four with 11 matches left to play.
Chelsea’s world-record compensation fee for Potter
Qualification for Europe’s elite club competition will be a minimum requirement for Boehly and, by extension, Potter, who, it has now been revealed, also commanded a huge ‘transfer fee’ when making the move from Brighton with his backroom staff.
The Seagulls published their accounts for the 2021-22 season until the end of June, which was highlighted by football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who runs The Price of Football podcast, on Twitter. The main part of statement doesn’t cover the period in which Potter moved, but it also contains a section entitled ‘Post balance sheet events’, which is where the juicy details of the compensation (effectively the ‘transfer fee’ for a manager and his team) paid by Chelsea were revealed:
“On September 18, 2022, the club was delighted to appoint Roberto De Zerbi as its new head coach following the loss of Graham Potter and his team to Chelsea a few days earlier in a deal that saw the club receive the sum of £21.5m.”
That equates to around $26.5 million, which is thought to be marginally higher than the compensation Bayern Munich paid to take Julian Nagelsmann from RB Leipzig.
How much does Graham Potter earn at Chelsea?
According to the Evening Standard, Potter signed a five-year, £12 million ($14.76 million) per season contract at Stamford Bridge, which means he will earn a total of £60 million ($73.82 million) if he sees out his deal.