Chelsea have done it again after world-record fee paid for pointless deal that resets this summer | OneFootball

Uli Hoeness once served almost two years in prison for concealing £22.4m in what his prosecutor called a “particularly grave case of tax evasion”.

It is safe to assume he didn’t offer the same defence then as he did when giving a generous maths lesson to the “stupid journalists” who questioned the financial prudence of paying a world-record £14.3m loan fee for Nicolas Jackson.

A few days prior, Bayern Munich’s honorary president laid out what has essentially been confirmed five months later: the German giants would not be relieving Chelsea of their burden permanently.

“The big money only has to be paid if he starts 40 games,” Hoeness said. “He never does that.”

That obligation to buy for a further £56.2m was even less obligatory than it first seemed. Jackson would have had to play at least 45 minutes in each of those 40 appearances, all of which had to come in either the Bundesliga or Champions League. In an AFCON season. With an absurdly in-form Harry Kane as his direct competition for the one place at the tip of Bayern’s attack.

By mid-February, and with Jackson on seven qualifying starts heading into a final stretch in which Bayern will play a maximum of 19 more games in their two main competitions, it is certain that something borrowed will at least temporarily become something blue again in the summer.

There are worse outcomes for Jackson, who will return to a Chelsea side with a far more holistic, collaborative outlook than that which he left. Liam Rosenior will welcome the Senegalese back with a clean slate rather than the bomb squad uniform Enzo Maresca would have cobbled together.

It might even be that Paul Merson’s vision comes to pass and Jackson unlocks the consistent excellence of Cole Palmer again; Joao Pedro has made the centre-forward role his own at Stamford Bridge but there remain gaps to fill up front, even just as an accomplished back-up.

Jackson might consider his stock to be worthy of more than such a role, but five goals in 22 games largely consisting of substitute cameos makes this a chipped, filthy shop window at best.

Bayern basically paid eight figures to give Kane the odd rest – not a dreadful idea in and of itself considering his injury record – for one season because of a big old Nick Woltemade panic.

And for their troubles, Chelsea get a PSR boost and someone with 42 combined goals and assists in 81 games for them back in their ranks ahead of either another extortionate loan, a sale that will confirm a profit made on a player they signed for £31.8m, or a reintegration under new management.

Their boardroom manners ought to be investigated at some point; Chelsea are still eminently capable of arranging these otherwise unfathomable deals that make it seem as though Clearlake are cheating on Football Manager, taking over the other negotiating party and retiring immediately once the transfer is rushed through on terms ludicrously advantageous to them.

This is not Atletico Madrid spending £57m on a 28-year-old Diego Costa in the middle of a transfer ban and his six-month exile from first-team football – perhaps nothing ever will be – but it runs it relatively close.

Bayern even had someone previously imprisoned for financial malpractice explain precisely how ripped off they had been. Hoeness called them “the real winners” of the summer transfer window, but Chelsea beat them mercilessly in the Jackson deal.