Chelsea news: Jamal Blackman being paid £13,000-a-week – but is never expected to play a game for the club

CHELSEA are paying youngster Jamal Blackman a whopping £13,000-a-week – even though they believe he will never play a first team game for the club.

Goalkeeper Blackman was handed a bumper five-year contract by the Blues in 2014 despite bosses deciding he was unlikely to ever be good enough to make the first team.

Instead the 22-year-old is one of 38 players Chelsea have farmed out on loan, currently attempting to make his way with Wycombe.

Blackman is paid £676,000-a-year by the London club – £250,000 more than England stopper Tom Heaton was earning when he helped Burnley to promotion last season.

Yet Chelsea have little intention of him making any progress through to the first team squad.

It is all part of the club’s unique business strategy of coining it in from loan fees for young players who have little chance of making the grade at Stamford Bridge.

The club even has a page on their website dedicated to updating news on all the youngsters shipped out on loan – 25 of whom have never figured for the first team.

Colombian forward Joao Rodriguez is currently out on his SEVENTH loan of his Chelsea career, aged just 20.

And FA Youth Cup winning goalkeeper Nathan Baxter, 17, has joined non-league Met Police on loan for the season.