By David Owen
November 24 – Chelsea, the Premier League champions enduring a woeful start to the present league campaign, fell back into the red in their latest title-winning season, although the club known as the Blues underlined that “after relevant adjustments” it was “comfortably” within allowable limits of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.
The loss of £23.1 million for the year to June 30 was incurred on revenues down £5.5 million to £314.3 million owing to a comparatively early Champions League exit. In 2013-14, the club had joined many of its Premier League rivals in announcing exceptionally strong financial results. In Chelsea’s case, this amounted to a pre-tax profit of just over £19 million. This, in turn, reflected an exceptionally large £65 million profit on the disposal of players.
The West London club, which could face an expensive recruitment drive if its recent form does not pick up significantly, released little else by way of hard financial data, besides stating that matchday and commercial revenues were “largely unchanged” from a year ago, with general admission prices “frozen at 2011-12 levels”. Further analysis will therefore need to await arrival of the new accounts at Companies House.
Bruce Buck, chairman, said the club had been consistent in its intention to comply with FFP. “It was a primary aim in the past financial year to be one of the clubs with a continuous record of meeting the regulations, which we have achieved,” Buck said.
The club, which plans to redevelop and boost capacity of its Stamford Bridge home, said it expected 2015-16 to produce record revenues, powered by new commercial deals such as the shirt sponsorship with Japanese tyre-maker Yokohama. When unveiled in February, this was reported to be worth £200 million over five years.
Chelsea also indicated that revenues related to this season’s Champions League were set to improve, “due to entering as Premier League champions and an increase in TV revenue for English clubs”.
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