Brighton & Hove Albion’s CEO, Paul Barber, humorously considers Chelsea as his “best customer,” even joking about their “loyalty points” due to Chelsea’s purchases of players like Marc Cucurella, Moises Caicedo, Robert Sanchez, and Joao Pedro.

Currently, Brighton is in discussions once more with Chelsea’s ownership, BlueCo, who also possess Strasbourg, a Ligue 1 French club. This time, the talks pertain to Julio Enciso.

On Wednesday, a remarkable agreement was struck for Chelsea’s owners to acquire Enciso from the south coast club for a sum of £13.8million.

He signed for Brighton when he was 18 years old and playing for Club Libertad in Paraguay.

Back then, Sam Jewell served as Brighton’s emerging talent scouting manager, tasked with identifying young, promising players, notably from South America. Jewell frequently collaborated with Paul Winstanley, the head of recruitment at Brighton.

Currently, both Jewell and Winstanley have transitioned to Chelsea, with Jewell as director of global recruitment and Winstanley as co-sporting director alongside Laurence Stewart.

Although their primary focus is Chelsea, they frequently interact with Strasbourg’s manager, Liam Rosenior, and are very familiar with Enciso, having initially brought the now 21-year-old to England.

With that, on to the questions and answers.

Who is Enciso signing for?

When asked on Thursday, one Brighton source said that even they were not entirely sure.

Conversations are continuing with BlueCo but it is expected that he would sign for Strasbourg with a possible view to the mothership that is Chelsea eventually beaming him up for themselves.

The fee to sign Enciso this month (£13.8m) is slightly more than the £9.5m that Brighton paid for him in 2022. He spent the second half of last season on loan at Ipswich Town as they were relegated from the Premier League and is currently sidelined by a knee injury which required surgery in the summer. He has entered the last year of his current contract.

It is worth noting that club sources on Thursday were keen to stress that Enciso had not yet signed for anyone while also adding, amid social-media accusations of multi-club murkiness, there is no transaction happening here between Chelsea and Strasbourg.

Will he end up playing for Chelsea?

Talks are ongoing but an eventual switch is the suggestion.

No rules would be broken if he were to, say, spend a single season at Strasbourg, impress, and then sign for Chelsea. FIFA say they do not need to perform checks on whether transfers within multi-club ownerships meet fair market value, but the Premier League do scrutinise such deals.

Why wouldn’t Chelsea just sign him themselves now if so?

It might be that Chelsea see Enciso as a potential player for the future but not as soon as this season, especially given the attacking options they already have under Enzo Maresca.

If he signed for them now, they would not be able to loan him to Strasbourg to gain experience. That is because they have already loaned Mike Penders, Kendry Paez and Mamadou Sarr to their sister club in France, and that is the maximum number of loans allowed as per FIFA’s rules.

By signing for Strasbourg instead, the costs would also go through their accounts, not Chelsea’s.

That would be extra helpful at a time when the financial constraints in football have clubs on edge, and with Chelsea already operating under a settlement agreement with UEFA which will impact who they can and cannot add to their Champions League squad for this season.

How do Strasbourg fans feel towards BlueCo?

Strasbourg fan group Ultra Boys 90 released a statement on the morning of their season-opening 1-0 win over Metz doubling down on their dislike of this ownership model.

‘The issues we have been raising since BlueCo took over have not magically faded away during the off-season,’ it read. ‘On the contrary, the transfer window conducted so far proves, to an absurd extent, that Racing is no longer a club that makes decisions in its own interest.

‘We are witnessing, instead, a headlong rush where Chelsea is steering the ship to the detriment of our club’s independence.’

It added that they would continue to perform a weekly protest by staying silent for the first 15 minutes of every match they play.

Chelsea loanees Penders, Paez and Sarr all featured in their victory over Metz, while among the substitutes was Ishe Samuels-Smith, the Cobham academy product who signed permanently for Strasbourg over this summer. They also brought in Mathis Amougou in this window, and another Chelsea youngster in Genesis Antwi may be moving soon, too.

Why would a player agree to go to Strasbourg before Chelsea?

If – again, if – it has been sold to Enciso that he can sign for Strasbourg before swapping them for Chelsea in the future then you would struggle to find a young attacker not enticed by that idea.

We should know more over the coming days because right now, it is sounding somewhat of a complex situation.