Romelu Lukaku: Chelsea still owe Inter Milan up to £71million for last summer’s club-record transfer

Chelsea could still owe Inter Milan up to £71million for their club-record signing of Romelu Lukaku, it has been revealed.

Lukaku headed back to Stamford Bridge for a fee worth £95million last summer, but The Sun are reporting that Chelsea planned to pay it in a series of instalments over 12 months.

While the Blues refused to comment on the details of the deal, Inter released documents in public when they were forced to refinance their huge debts last year.

Those documents show that the Italian club are not due to receive the full transfer fee until later this year, however it will not come directly from Chelsea.

The deal to bring Lukaku back to west London appears to have been split into five instalments worth around £20million each.

Chelsea paid the initial instalment, yet Inter then arranged a forward-funding agreement with an unnamed financial institution to receive more money sooner.

The arrangement is common practice for football clubs like Inter, who were dealing with a financial crisis last summer.

As part of the deal, Chelsea would then pay the remaining instalments to the institution instead of Inter.

Lukaku headed back to Stamford Bridge last summer for a club-record £95million fee

The Serie A champions had received £18.4million from the institution by September 2021, with almost £71million to come over the next year.

It is unclear how many payments Chelsea were due to make throughout the season, though even if they were set to clear the debt the club would have broke even in player trading.

Accounts for the company through which Roman Abramovich still owns Chelsea and its various subsidiaries, Fordstam Limited, show it had £104m of debts to trade creditors due to be paid a year from June 30 2021.

And the majority of those debts would have been transfer payments to other clubs. 

Sanctioned-owner Roman Abramovich’s accounts show Chelsea owe £104m in transfer fees

The same accounts show they were also expecting to receive £167million in sell-on fees from clubs buying ex-Chelsea players.

Abramovich’s assets were frozen by the UK Government this week due to his links with Russian president Vladimir Putin, but they provided Chelsea with a special licence to continue football operations.

While they should be able to pay their bills until the end of the season, any potential suitor looking to replace Abramovich at the Bridge will be inheriting a business that required £366million worth of extra-funding from him over five years.