When Chelsea decided to spend around £100m to bring back Romelu Lukaku to the club, it was almost guaranteed that the fee wouldn’t be paid in full immediately.
After all, few clubs are prepared to do that, with most spreading the payments over a number of years, allowing them greater flexibility on the market, all the while guaranteeing the selling club their fee in the long run.
That being said, when the deal was struck, no one would have foreseen the current situation Chelsea find themselves in, with Roman Abramovich’s assets currently frozen, leading to certain restrictions being placed on the Blues in the process.
But, and this is an important one, Inter sought to protect themselves regardless, according to Il Sole 24 Ore, which could be highly beneficial to them if Chelsea end up being in deeper trouble than they already are.
The financial newspaper have a small article in their Tuesday edition, which states the Serie A side ‘are saved from a possible Chelsea effect on the accounts’.
They then explain that the €115m transaction ‘saw the involvement of a London bank through which a sale without recourse was made’.
This means that ‘Inter have covered themselves from the risk of not being able to collect their money in instalments (in four years, according to rumours) from Chelsea: a risk that could now fall on the banking group’.
Il Sole 24 Ore don’t know which bank was used, but they point out that ‘it’s known that Goldman Sachs has usually been the bank of reference for Inter and the Zhang family’ in the past.
As for Chelsea, they are described as being ‘in chaos after the club’s bank accounts have been frozen’ and ‘if the British government doesn’t grant greater freedom in bank transactions, the team risks financial paralysis after heavy sanctions on the magnate Roman Abramovich for relations with Russian president Vladimir Putin’.
