Last week, it was revealed that Chelsea holds the record for being the most financially extravagant club in Premier League history, amassing a staggering £1.2 billion in debt since the league’s inception. Much of the blame was attributed to Roman Abramovich, whose financial maneuvers, allegedly fueled by profits from post-Soviet Russia, left a significant mark on British football.

However, the club’s penchant for lavish spending didn’t end when Abramovich’s ties to Vladimir Putin led to his sanctions and subsequent exit from Stamford Bridge.

Clearlake Capital, the club’s new ownership group, has continued the trend with a staggering £1.15 billion spent on transfer fees. This includes what some consider a particularly questionable investment in Raheem Sterling.

In 2022, Sterling’s potential was highly regarded, prompting then-manager Thomas Tuchel to advocate for his acquisition. Co-owner Todd Boehly offered him a lucrative £300,000-a-week contract, successfully luring him away from Manchester City.

However, the new American owners soon decided to focus on younger players, adhering to a revised wage structure, with few exceptions like Reece James. This approach led to a significant spending spree. Demonstrating a familiar Premier League confidence, Chelsea was so sure that the Gulf market could facilitate Sterling’s transfer that they initiated paperwork for his move before he had even agreed to it.

Raheem Sterling’s time at Chelsea has been such a scandalous waste that it should have every right-minded Blues fan asking: ‘How dare they run our club this way?’

Co-owner Todd Boehly threw a £300,000-a-week contract at Sterling, begged him to sign and the forward left Manchester City with good grace

He was justifiably astonished – not wanting to be pushed into the Middle East after settling his family into London and discovering simple pleasures in watching his son develop into an Under 9s player at Arsenal’s academy. He called the club’s bluff and refused to move.

Chelsea thought they could bully him, offering a choice between their bomb squad or the desert, but the gist of his response was: ‘I’ll stay, then. You won’t push me around.’

In any normal, intellectually-functioning realm of business, the answer to a player’s perfectly reasonable request not to be parked as a non-entity in the desert would be to accept that he was staying and extract a little value from those wages. 

The evidence of the time Sterling spent on loan at Arsenal last year tells us that at the very least he is a positive, mentoring force among young players.

But since Chelsea don’t act in that kind of way, they have this season thrown him back in the bomb squad, marginalising him in a way which is degrading. When Conor Gallagher was treated the same way to get him out the door, it raised questions from the PFA about the ethics of alienating such senior players without good reason.     

The arrival of Liam Rosenior, a yes-man who has swallowed the management manual, was never going to make Sterling anything other than an ostracised outsider. The last man in the bomb squad.

By my calculation, Sterling has earned around £54million gross, before tax and bonuses in his bleak three years in west London, which is the equivalent to around £650,000 per game. Some might view him with disdain because of this but I do not begrudge him one penny. 

The evidence of the time Sterling spent on loan at Arsenal last year tells us that at the very least he is a positive, mentoring force among young players

Chelsea have been shortsighted, driving down Sterling’s value by marginalising him

Chelsea were the ones who threw that money at him and then treated him disgracefully. They are also the ones who have managed to drive down his value by consigning him to irrelevance. 

Sterling has been more than willing to take a substantial drop in pay to begin his career again at a club where he would be valued and, still only 31, might play. Chelsea have not pulled up trees to bring him such a move.

They’ve left it very late again. We are in the dying days of another transfer window and they are again trying to move him on, with the preference being a sale, though the termination of his contract or a loan move has not been ruled out. Paying out the final 18 months of his deal in full would cost them £22million. 

An absolute fortune in your world or mine. Small change for the geniuses at Clearlake, custodians of a football club who are 13 points off the top of the Premier League and barely make the cut as the second best side in London.