Katie Stafford
BBC Sport

Image source, BBC Sport

If Conor Gallagher should leave Chelsea this summer for Atletico Madrid then he will be the eighth academy player to be sold in the Clearlake era.

Chelsea have had a profitable academy for some time and in the years from 2014 to 2023 they made £295.5m from 28 player sales. That is the highest of any club in England.

Defender Fikayo Tomori was sold to AC Milan in 2021 when he was barely featuring for the Blues and they made £25m from that move alone. The recent sales of Ian Maatsen and Omari Hutchinson also highlight Chelsea’s use of the loan market to boost a player’s value before selling.

And should Gallagher sign for Atletico for £33m, he will be the fourth-most profitable academy departure in the last 10 years, with only Mason Mount, Maatsen and Tammy Abraham having a higher price tag.

Chelsea have spent more than £1bn on players in the Todd Boehly era and with that has come the pinch of profit and sustainability regulations (PSR).

Rules state that a club is not allowed to make a loss of more than £105m over a three-year period or they are to face charges.

Since the the 2022 takeover Chelsea have made more than £180.5m from selling academy players alone, which has helped to balance the books and keep them within regulations.

But academy players who left before the Clearlake takeover were not regular starters. So does the reaction of Chelsea fans to the potential sale of a well-liked captain in Gallagher show it has hit a nerve?