Chelsea would demand ‘over £200m’ from Real Madrid for Eden Hazard — report

José Mourinho once famously claimed that Eden Hazard is worth £100m for each leg, and while that valuation is a few years old, Chelsea’s potential asking price for a possible Eden Hazard transfer to Real Madrid would use similar principles.

As the conditional qualifiers in the first sentence indicate, this is all very much hypothetical at this point. Hazard hasn’t actually made up his mind to leave, he “might be” thinking of trying a new challenge. Real Madrid haven’t actually made a bid, though we perhaps shouldn’t expect a statement from that like the ones they issues to deny interest in Neymar and Kylian Mbappé. And then there’s the club and the owner and all the decision-makers at Chelsea. Would they even consider or sanction a sale? Hazard has put the ball firmly in their court, both in terms of this possible transfer and in terms of improving the squad and competing for titles in the future.

Sure, some of those words may just be a token gesture. Modern football is ruled by player power and if Hazard decides he wants to leave, Chelsea are unlikely to stand in his way. He would of course be asked and implored to reconsider, but as we’ve seen with Matić, Čech, Mata, De Bruyne, and others, as long as we receive what we consider fair compensation, we’d choose the path of least resistance, and let him go.

And that brings us back to the £200m+, which would be a world record fee breaking Neymar’s €222m (£200m) transfer to PSG last summer. Can Real Madrid pay that much? Probably. Cristiano Ronaldo’s fee covers half of it already. Would Real Madrid pay that much? Maybe not.

Either way, Hazard’s statement yesterday hopefully has only the solitary effect of goading Chelsea into swift action, be that the new contract extension and wage rise into the region of £300k/week (would be highest ever at Chelsea), or making sure that the £200m+ is re-invested in a way that might actually improve the team, maybe if not right away, then certainly a couple years down the line.