Chelsea has announced a profit of £18.4M ($29M) for the year ending June 30, the "largest since Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich took over the club 11 years ago," according to Steve Tongue of REUTERS. There was also a record turnover of £319.8M ($502M).
But although transfer receipts of around £87M ($137M) from the sale of Juan Mata to ManU and David Luiz to Paris St. Germain in that period are included, outgoings of more than £60M ($94M) on Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa in July are not.
It does mean, however, that Chelsea "can claim to be within UEFA's Financial Fair Play criteria" (REUTERS, 11/13). In London, Dan Francis reported it is the "second time in three years that Chelsea have posted a profit and is further proof of the club's emergence as British football’s leading club on and off the pitch," confounding the belief that years of wild spending under Abramovich "would backfire." Although it turned a £67M loss into a £1.4M profit in '12, "this is the first real sign that Chelsea are making progress without having to rely on the wealth of their billionaire Russian owner," and the cash bounty could enable Manager Jose Mourinho "to bring in new recruits when the transfer window re-opens in order to cement what is already looking like becoming a successful title challenge" (DAILY MAIL, 11/13). The BBC wrote under FFP, clubs need to balance football-related expenditure -- transfers and wages -- with TV and ticket income, plus revenues raised by their commercial departments.
Money spent on stadiums, training facilities, youth development or community projects "is exempt." Chelsea Chair
Bruce Buck said that "the club's focus was first and foremost on the team's performance." Buck:
"By reaching the Champions League semifinal and maintaining a challenge in the Premier League until the final week of the season we demonstrated that, while improving our financial figures, we remained competitive in football's toughest club competitions" (BBC, 11/13).
STAMFORD REDEVELOPMENT: In London, Ian Herbert reported the club’s biggest challenge in complying with FFP long-term "is the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge into a stadium with a 60,000 capacity." Arsenal’s greater capacity earns them £35M ($55M) more in match-day revenue than the league leaders each year. Chelsea believes that a stadium upgrade "will help to improve the atmosphere, which Mourinho has recently complained about, with potential to experiment with the sale of tickets" (INDEPENDENT, 11/13). Also in London, Matt Dickinson reported Chelsea ran up losses of more than £600M in the first 10 years under Abramovich, including a £131M loss in '05 during the early lavish spending spree and £49.4M in '12-13, "when income fell because of crashing out of the Champions League at the group stage" (LONDON TIMES, 11/13).
