OFFICIAL: Chelsea announce loan deal of 25 year old defender for potential €30m total

Chelsea have ticked another deal off their list – Benoit Badiashile is heading to Napoli on loan for the season.

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Chelsea have just announced that Benoit Badiashile has completed a loan move to Napoli for the season.

Previous reports have held that it’s a €3m loan fee for the year, with an option for the Italian club to buy him for €27m included.

Badiashile had a few impressive games at Chelsea, but was never able to stay fit consistently, and he looked increasingly shaky when he did play. He’s up to 71 appearances since signing in January 2023, but they’ve all been scattered through that time.

He needs consistent games, and was never getting that at Stamford Bridge. The 25 year old still has talent and potential, and hopefully this way can show it off.

We’ve outlined our problem with this deal already – there’s just no way Napoli end up paying the €27m option, even if Badiashile does well. We’ve seen this countless times with Italian clubs – they are strapped for cash and never just trigger the option to make the deal happen.

So it really just kicks the can down the road until next summer – but at least by then Badiashile will hopefully have a year of regular football under his belt and will have plenty more interest.

This deal takes Chelsea down to 11 players left to shift… the race is on.