Brighton & Hove Albion chief executive Paul Barber does not shy from referring to Chelsea as his ‘best customer’. He will even joke they have ‘loyalty points’ with him after buying Marc Cucurella, Moises Caicedo, Robert Sanchez and Joao Pedro.
Now, Brighton are in talks with Chelsea’s owners again. That is BlueCo, who also own Strasbourg, the French side competing in Ligue 1, and this time, it is over Julio Enciso.
In a remarkable development on Wednesday, Chelsea’s owners reached an agreement to sign Enciso from the south coast club in a deal worth £13.8million.
This one is not a straightforward transaction, with insiders at both Chelsea and Brighton cautious in what they would divulge on Thursday, but first, before our Q&A, a short history lesson on Enciso.
He signed for Brighton when he was 18 years old and playing for Club Libertad in Paraguay.
At the time, Sam Jewell was Brighton’s emerging talent scouting manager. It was his responsibility to identify and recruit young players with potential, especially in South America. Jewell worked closely with Paul Winstanley, who was Brighton’s head of recruitment.
Chelsea have reached an agreement to sign yet another formidable talent from Brighton in Julio Enciso
Since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover, the west London side have routinely pillaged their Premier League rivals
Man City
Tottenham
*18+, excludes NI. Terms and conditions apply
Now, both Jewell and Winstanley work for Chelsea, one as director of global recruitment and the other as co-sporting director alongside Laurence Stewart.
Though their chief remit is Chelsea, they speak regularly with Strasbourg manager Liam Rosenior, and they know Enciso as well as anyone after originally bringing the now 21-year-old to England.
With that, on to the questions and answers.
Who is Enciso signing for?
When asked on Thursday, one Brighton source said that even they were not entirely sure.
Conversations are continuing with BlueCo but it is expected that he would sign for Strasbourg with a possible view to the mothership that is Chelsea eventually beaming him up for themselves.
The fee to sign Enciso this month (£13.8m) is slightly more than the £9.5m that Brighton paid for him in 2022. He spent the second half of last season on loan at Ipswich Town as they were relegated from the Premier League and is currently sidelined by a knee injury which required surgery in the summer. He has entered the last year of his current contract.
It is worth noting that club sources on Thursday were keen to stress that Enciso had not yet signed for anyone while also adding, amid social-media accusations of multi-club murkiness, there is no transaction happening here between Chelsea and Strasbourg.
Enciso is thought to be only set for a temporary spell in Ligue 1 before a planned move back
Will he end up playing for Chelsea?
Talks are ongoing but an eventual switch is the suggestion.
No rules would be broken if he were to, say, spend a single season at Strasbourg, impress, and then sign for Chelsea. FIFA say they do not need to perform checks on whether transfers within multi-club ownerships meet fair market value, but the Premier League do scrutinise such deals.
Why wouldn’t Chelsea just sign him themselves now if so?
It might be that Chelsea see Enciso as a potential player for the future but not as soon as this season, especially given the attacking options they already have under Enzo Maresca.
If he signed for them now, they would not be able to loan him to Strasbourg to gain experience. That is because they have already loaned Mike Penders, Kendry Paez and Mamadou Sarr to their sister club in France, and that is the maximum number of loans allowed as per FIFA’s rules.
By signing for Strasbourg instead, the costs would also go through their accounts, not Chelsea’s.
That would be extra helpful at a time when the financial constraints in football have clubs on edge, and with Chelsea already operating under a settlement agreement with UEFA which will impact who they can and cannot add to their Champions League squad for this season.
Strasbourg fans have previously wrestled with their new identity as Chelsea’s sister team
How do Strasbourg fans feel towards BlueCo?
Strasbourg fan group Ultra Boys 90 released a statement on the morning of their season-opening 1-0 win over Metz doubling down on their dislike of this ownership model.
‘The issues we have been raising since BlueCo took over have not magically faded away during the off-season,’ it read. ‘On the contrary, the transfer window conducted so far proves, to an absurd extent, that Racing is no longer a club that makes decisions in its own interest.
‘We are witnessing, instead, a headlong rush where Chelsea is steering the ship to the detriment of our club’s independence.’
It added that they would continue to perform a weekly protest by staying silent for the first 15 minutes of every match they play.
Chelsea loanees Penders, Paez and Sarr all featured in their victory over Metz, while among the substitutes was Ishe Samuels-Smith, the Cobham academy product who signed permanently for Strasbourg over this summer. They also brought in Mathis Amougou in this window, and another Chelsea youngster in Genesis Antwi may be moving soon, too.
Why would a player agree to go to Strasbourg before Chelsea?
If – again, if – it has been sold to Enciso that he can sign for Strasbourg before swapping them for Chelsea in the future then you would struggle to find a young attacker not enticed by that idea.
We should know more over the coming days because right now, it is sounding somewhat of a complex situation.
