Chelsea sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart have hit back at “misconceptions” around the club selling their academy graduates.

The Blues have regularly been accused of utilising the sales of academy graduates in order balance their PSR numbers during a period of huge recruitment of new players. In total, the club have forked out over £1bn to rebuild their squad since 2022, avoiding PSR penalties by selling the likes of Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount over the last two years – with both sales of academy graduates generating £93m of total profit.

The sale of the former to Atletico Madrid during the summer transfer window drew plenty of ire from Chelsea fans, with the midfielder having regularly captained the side throughout the 2023/24 campaign.

Speaking about the decision to sell academy graduates in an interview with The Telegraph, the club’s sporting directors defended the moves made.

“We had a significant offer for one of our academy products this summer that we absolutely chose not to take,” Winstanley revealed as he hit back at suggestions Chelsea are looking to cash in on homegrown talents. “There’s a lot of misconception out there.

“We’ve had two debuts this year. There’s three or four more players in behind who we think we can push through this year as well that we’re keen to do. The manager’s on board with that, he’s aware of the players coming through. We give them opportunities when we can to make sure they’ve got that pathway.

“It’s not just about PSR, it’s contractual statuses, it’s circumstances. The two players you referenced, there were contractual problems that we walked into. It’s really important for us to bring through players.”

Stewart also discussed the similarly controversial decision by Chelsea to hand out incredibly long contracts to players, with the likes of Cole Palmer being tied down for another nine years and Moises Cacideo for another eight. The sporting director explained that the lengthy contracts are a part of the club’s “long-term” aspirations.

“This is a club that needs to be in the Champions League, it’s a club that needs to be competing to win trophies consistently and we want to do that with a certain way of playing football as well,” he said. “So that absolutely is the ambition.

“And then the plan has been how do we go on a path to make that possible. And that’s been around investing in talent, committing to develop talent and developing a way of playing, the way we want our teams to play.

“One of the messages the owners gave us from the beginning is that this is not about a short-term win or a short-term project, it’s about long-term success and that’s been one of the driving things on all of the decisions that we’ve made. That, absolutely, is the idea, to try to make the club long-term successful.”

The Blues have started the 2024/25 season on a positive note and are currently sitting in fourth having won four of their first seven Premier League games.

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