The failed transfer highlights how traditional football clubs and crypto-backed ownership groups continue to clash over player valuations
Chelsea’s pursuit of Swiss midfielder Granit Xhaka has officially hit a dead end. The Premier League club’s bid to reunite the 33-year-old with manager Xabi Alonso, who coached him during Bayer Leverkusen’s historic Bundesliga title run, is no longer happening.
What happened with the Xhaka bid
Chelsea submitted an initial offer of £8 million, roughly $10.6 million, for Xhaka. Sunderland rejected it immediately.
The reasoning was straightforward. Sunderland paid £17.5 million to acquire Xhaka in the first place, making Chelsea’s opening gambit less than half that figure. Alan Shearer called the bid “embarrassing” and said it showed a lack of respect for both the player and the selling club.
Sunderland’s position was unambiguous: Xhaka is not for sale. The midfielder has been a significant contributor to their Premier League campaign, and letting him go at a steep discount made zero strategic sense. Meanwhile, Xhaka himself shifted his attention to Switzerland’s World Cup preparations, keeping his head down while clubs argued over his price tag.
The connection between Xhaka and Chelsea was always rooted in the Alonso factor. The two worked together at Bayer Leverkusen during the 2023 season, when the German club captured its first-ever Bundesliga title. That relationship clearly drove Chelsea’s interest, but sentiment alone doesn’t close deals.
What this means for the market
The Alonso connection made this deal plausible on paper but couldn’t bridge a valuation gap that was simply too wide. Chelsea would have needed to roughly double their offer to enter serious discussions, and evidently that wasn’t a price they were willing to pay for a player in the twilight of his career.
