Chelsea have confirmed Raheem Sterling has left the club after both parties agreed to end his contract. \u201cWe thank Raheem for the contribution he made while a Chelsea player and wish him well for the next stage in his career,\u201d Chelsea said in a statement as they confirmed Sterling\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n
Sterling entered the final 18 months of his contract in January and, after four weeks of the January window without suitors, discussions moved to a potential contract termination. BBC Sport notes negotiations were complicated by the winger\u2019s bumper salary thought to be in the region of \u00a3325,000 per week. He was entitled to around \u00a322 million in wages over the remainder of his contract.<\/p>\n
Chelsea had preferred an outright sale but were unable to find clubs willing to approach that salary level, prompting the club to pursue a termination. Negotiations with Chelsea will likely have started when the winger entered the final 18 months of his deal, though the precise terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.<\/p>\n
That sequence follows Sterling\u2019s summer exile in 2024, a period in which he collected around \u00a322 million in salary, with only a fraction of that contributed by Arsenal during his loan last season. Back in the summer, Sterling made his stance perfectly clear. He did not want to leave the city of London, and that is thought to remain the case.<\/p>\n
Chelsea explored several loan options during the summer, with Juventus and Bayer Leverkusen among the clubs contacted, but the 31-year-old had no interest in heading overseas. He reportedly rejected the offers and chose to spend the following six months on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
With the contract no longer in place, Sterling is now a free agent and can sign for a new team outside the transfer window, which closes on Feb. 2. Fulham and West Ham United have been named as suitors. Brentford, Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur are also among London clubs likely to have been alerted to his availability. The end of Sterling\u2019s contract removes a long-standing financial commitment for Chelsea over the next 18 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea and Sterling have agreed to terminate his contract, making him a free agent in London. today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1397,1163],"tags":[983,1304,1089],"class_list":["post-6309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-transfer-news","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-benching","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}