BlueCo, the ownership group of Chelsea, are leaving no stone unturned in their bid to become champions of England once more. Todd Boehly, the principal investor in the consortium, has spent nearly £1.5 billion on transfer fees sitting taking the keys to Stamford Bridge in May 2022.
They’ve made plenty in player sales in that time too, with the likes of Marc Cucurella, Andrey Santos and Noni Madueke all leaving for big money in recent times. After winning the controversial Club World Cup in the summer of 2025, Chelsea did not kick on as expected during the 2025/26 season and ended up finishing tenth in the Premier League title – defeat in the FA Cup final means that they haven’t qualified for any of the European competitions.
The solution? As is par for the course for Boehly and BlueCo, you chuck money at the problem. So they’ve splashed out £117 million on Morgan Rogers, despite not having any continental football to offset that huge transfer fee against. In doing so, the Blues have made Rogers the most expensive English player of all time, surpassing the £115 million Real Madrid will ultimately splash on Jude Bellingham when bonuses and add-ons are paid.
The 100 Club
At the time of writing, five English players have now been sold for fees of £100 million or more.
Jack Grealish
Jack Grealish is a trend setter, whether it’s with his haircuts or his transfers. When he left Aston Villa to join Manchester City in 2021, he became the first British player to command a fee of £100 million. If the expectation was that more three-figure fees would immediately follow, pundits were wrong – they would have to wait until January 2023 for the next.
Enzo Fernandez
That was Enzo Fernandez, who after impressing during Argentina’s World Cup triumph in Qatar at the tail-end of 2022, became British football’s most expensive signing in history when he swapped Benfica for Chelsea in a deal worth £107 million. Maybe that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, as by the summer of 2023 British football witnessed another first: two players were signed by Premier League clubs for fees in excess of £100 million.
Declan Rice
The first was Declan Rice, who put pen to paper on a move from West Ham to Arsenal in July 2023 for a fee of £105 million.
Moises Caicedo
And, just a month later, Chelsea were at it again when they broke the British transfer once more with the pick-up of Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo for £115 million.
Florian Wirtz & Alexander Isak
Two years would pass before the next time that the £100 million ceiling was shattered. And, like buses, two came along at once. Liverpool, fresh from winning the Premier League title, decided to twist rather than stick by splashing out £116 million on Florian Wirtz and £125 million on Alexander Isak respectively.
Given that Wirtz struggled in his first season at Anfield and Isak suffered a season-destroying injury, that mammoth £241million investment is yet to truly bear fruit… although there’s still time, of course.
Morgan Rogers & Elliot Anderson
Onto the summer of 2026, where new horizons were reached: three Premier League clubs forked out in excess of £100 million for a player. Chelsea picked up Rogers, as we know, just a matter of weeks after Manchester City signed his England World Cup colleague Anderson for a then-record for an English player of £116 million.
Sandro Tonali
Lost in the World Cup ether was Tottenham’s £100 million deal to capture Newcastle United’s Sandro Tonali, a fee which certainly raised an eyebrow or two. Given that this article was written in July 2026, there’s still scope for more £100 million plus transfers to be added – even if there isn’t, this has still been a record-breaking transfer window in that regard.
Five midfielders, a left winger, two players that could be classified as playing as an old-school ‘inside left’ and, surprisingly, just one striker – spending £100m on a player is no guarantee of success. Of the nine players mentioned that have breached the £100 million ceiling, how many will have delivered true value for money once their time at the club is up?
Value for Money
Since the summer of 2022, which was BlueCo’s first transfer window as Chelsea owners, they have recruited 130 players for a total outlay of around £1.65 billion… and counting.
Remember, of the nine £100 million plus players name checked in this article, three of them joined Chelsea – that means the Blues have signed 33.3% of all those individuals. It’s the sort of stat that is worth repeating in the context of the spending of other Premier League clubs in the same period from the summer of 2022 to the scorching summer days of 2026:
- #1 – Chelsea – £1.65 billion
- #2 – Tottenham – £1 billion
- #3 – Manchester City – £970 million
- #4 – Manchester United – £900 million
- #5 – Liverpool – £805 million
Compare Chelsea’s spending to their Premier League rivals and you can see why their regression in the table is so perplexing – and potentially damaging long term. In the four completed seasons since BlueCo took charge of the club, Chelsea have finished twelfth, sixth, fourth and tenth in the Premier League. It’s the kind of form line that would suggest they have made major errors – perhaps in the head coaches they have appointed, or in the players they have acquired.
Yes, there’s been trophies, but not even the riches of the Club World Cup – or the apologetic UEFA Conference League – can really convince Chelsea fans that Chelsea have moved forward under the control of Boehly and co. Chelsea are an example of football’s great paradox: you have to spend money to be successful. But you have to spend money successfully to be successful.
Shorn of fatigue-inducing continental football in 2026/27, the Blues can focus purely on the Premier League – as such, a top-four finish has to be the priority. They will have three players worth £100 million or more on the pitch at times, as Rogers dovetails with Fernandez and Caicedo in midfield. But, and it seems ridiculous to be even writing these words, will even that be enough?
