Why Chelsea’s Michael Olise bid is “similar to Enzo” and is making slow progress

After some exciting days in the chase for Crystal Palace winger Michael Olise, things have gone very quiet.

It’s making some fans uncomfortable, but our writer Simon Phillips is here with an exclusive on his Substack explaining just what’s going on and why there’s little to no news in recent days.

After coming close to an agreement over a transfer fee with Palace, Chelsea now have to get into the specifics of the deal:

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“Chelsea are now speaking with Crystal Palace about the instalments of the release clause. But it’s not just about that and is unfortunately not that easy. SPTC sources can confirm that the money will need to be split and some will be paid to Olise himself as part of his new agreed release clause, his agent, and his former club Reading. This is why it is taking some time to sort out.

“It’s similar to the Enzo Fernandez situation when money needed to be paid to River Plate too, it always makes these deals a lot more complex.”

A lot of moving pieces

It all sounds rather horrifying to organise, with so many parties and percentages and accounting tricks to be taken into account on all sides. That’s complicated even further by the way that Chelsea and Palace fell out so brutally over his transfer last summer.

In the end however, all 3 parties are happy for this deal to take place if they can find the right numbers, and they will be making progress towards that, gradually. The only slight element of tension in getting it done is ensuring that things are completed before other clubs get involved.

They could potentially jack up the price by bidding, which would in turn blow up all the hard work put in to getting the specifics of the move done.

There are some comforting words on that front too however – Phillips says that the wages are “verbally done,” meaning they shouldn’t delay things too much when they reach that stage, as is the “specific normal compensation,” which is a little more obscure, but perhaps refers to the actual total transfer fee rather than the breakdown of who gets it and when.