I was going to write a long update on Chelsea's Financial Fair Play situation once we had Hulk confirmed, but at this point I'm not seeing a very good reason to. The Blues will almost certainly be fine under financial fair play rules thanks to a new Premier League TV deal that will see an absolutely absurd amount of money poured into the game. How much money?
TV rights recap: Sky (116 games) and BT (38) will pay £3.018bn for live uk prem rights 2013-16, uplift of 70pc on £1.78bn SKY n ESPN pay now
— sportingintelligence (@sportingintel) June 13, 2012
Overseas rights mostly still to be sold. £1.47bn last time 2010-13. I'd expect that to go up £2bn-plus, maybe quite a bit plus.
— sportingintelligence (@sportingintel) June 13, 2012
I haven't had the time to look into this in any real depth as of yet, but according to Sporting Intelligence we're probably looking at a doubling of media income starting two seasons from now. Considering that Chelsea are already making the bulk of their income from media deals - more than £100M in the 2011 fiscal year - this is a massive, massive boost to the club's finances.
Combine that with the Champions League win, which came with substantial prize money, qualification for next year's tournament and the probability of better offers from sponsors, and it's no surprise that Chelsea are now throwing money around willy-nilly. If Sporting Intel's projections hold, and they very likely will, FFP will not be a significant problem.
More generally, this will have a major impact on the balance of power around Europe - Premier League sides will have significantly more spending power than their continental rivals, and that means we'll be seeing more of the world's top talents moving to England than we're used to. Interesting.