Uefa is to change its Financial Fair Play rules in response to Chelsea’s recent trend of signing players on long-term contracts.
Signing players on extended contracts enables Chelsea to spread the player’s transfer fee over the life of that deal when submitting their annual accounts.
Uefa is to set a five-year limit over which a transfer fee can be spread.
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Clubs will still be able to offer longer deals under UK regulations but will not be able to stretch transfer fees beyond the first five years.
France defender Benoit Badiashile and Ivory Coast striker David Datro Fofana both signed six-and-a-half year deals at Chelsea earlier this month and Noni Madueke joined on a seven-and-a-half year contract following Ukraine winger Mudryk’s arrival.
The Madueke transfer took Chelsea’s spending since last summer close to £450m, but the players’ long contracts will help them comply with the regulations.
Under Uefa’s current rules, clubs can spend up to 5m euros (£4.4m) more than they earn over a three-year period.
However, new Uefa rules introduced last June limit clubs’ spending on wages, transfers and agents’ fees to 70% of their revenue, although permitted losses over a three-year period have risen to 60m euros (£49.96m).
