Chelsea owners lose over £1billion in two seasons – Unsustainable | OneFootball

The Chelsea owners continue to make headlines.

Their ‘creative accounting’ a running joke.

With the Chelsea accountant(s) clearly winning player of the year each season ahead of any of the playing squad, since these American owners took over from Roman Abramovich.

The American ownership group having sold themselves two hotels that the club owned in the Chelsea 2022/23 accounts, to avoid PSR sanctions due to losses beyond the allowed three season £105m limit.

Their latest accountancy stunt for the 2023/24 Chelsea accounts, was/is for the Chelsea ownership group to try and sell to themselves the Chelsea women’s team, to avoid PSR sanctions. Surely the biggest stunt/joke (so far!), with the Chelsea owners trying to claim a valuation of £200m for the women’s team, despite the latest accounts showing the women’s team had revenues of only £11.5m last (2023/24) season AND lost £8.7m. When the Chelsea accounts were finally made public (see below), the club admitting that the Premier League are yet to agree that the £200m women’s team valuation is ‘fair value’…

What I think though is often overlooked when it comes to what the Chelsea owners are up to with their creative accounting, is what is the final goal?

Quite clearly the American ownership has only got involved in Chelsea due to a desire to enrich themselves, but how exactly this is ever going to happen in the longer-term, is a total mystery. Unless they are hoping to strike oil under the Stamford Bridge pitch…

Apart from the creative accountancy moves, the only thing these Chelsea owners have been successful with, is burning through staggering amounts of money.

We have now seen 22 Holdco Limited release their accounts for the year ending 30 June 2024, they are the Chelsea parent company which owns both Chelsea and Strasbourg (which the American owners bought in June 2023).

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire reporting on this via his social media – 10 April 2025:

“Chelsea parent company 22 Holdco Ltd, which owns both Chelsea and Strasbourg, lost £473 million in 23/24 taking losses to almost £1.1 billion in the first two trading years.

“The company borrowed £967 million and repaid loans of £317 million in the year.”

Kieran states, almost £1.1billion lost in their first two seasons of football ownership with these two clubs (Chelsea and Strasbourg), who knows what losses they can add to that with this current 2024/25 season…?

The Chelsea parent company show losses of £473,220,000 for 2023/24, which follows losses of £678,179,000, bringing the total of losses to £1,151,399,000. So actually, with his adding up, Kieran having been a little generous to the Chelsea owners, as the losses over these first two years are actually more than £1.15billion, rather than almost £1.1billion.

Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly pictured with Amanda Staveley during the Summer Series friendlies in the USA in summer 2023

The Mag report – 5 April 2025:

Earlier this week The Times reported (see below) on the latest Chelsea accounts, after the headline figures were announced.

The American owners of the club having already in previous accounts pulled stunts like selling hotels that Chelsea own to themselves, to somehow stay within PSR (Profit and Sustainability RULES!).

For the latest accounts, the 2023/24 season, it was the Chelsea women’s team that was getting ‘sold’ by the owners and ‘bought’ by the same ownership group.

An accountancy move to try and somehow stay within allowed PSR losses over a three year period, despite the ridiculous amounts of money spent by these current owners.

The Chelsea women’s team was understood to have a turnover of only around £10m and not making a profit, yet somehow valued at £150m+ when the American owners sell it to themselves, to get around PSR.

Rather than Chelsea making a massive loss for 2023/24 that would take them well beyond the three years allowed losses under PSR, instead they actually make a large profit!

A joke, but not a funny one.

With the full Chelsea 2023/24 accounts now in the public domain, new details to emerge have shown the full extent of just how beyond belief the stunt that the Chelsea owners are now trying to pull.

These full accounts show that the Chelsea women’s team had revenues of £11.5m and a loss of £8.7m for 2023/24, this compared to the previous season (2022/23) when the revenues were £8.8m and losses £4.2m.

Yet despite these meagre revenues and significant losses for the Chelsea women’s team, Chelsea have admitted that they ‘sold’ the women’s team (to themselves) for £200m.

Yes – TWO HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS!!!

Chelsea also admit that (unsurprisingly!), the Premier League have not yet agreed that the £200m price is fair market value.

So whilst the Chelsea owners have tried to claim a value of £200m for the Chelsea women’s team, in reality, what would anybody else have paid for a ‘business’ that has such low revenues (in football terms) and makes losses that are almost as high as their revenues???

The Times report – 31 March 2025:

Chelsea made a profit of almost £200million from selling their women’s team and other subsidiaries to the club’s parent company in a move that helped them to avoid breaching the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules last season.

The figure of £198.7million was revealed on Chelsea’s website, although the club’s full 2023-24 accounts have yet to be published. It is believed that the value of the women’s team alone was considerably more than £150million.

A profit on player sales of £152.5million also helped Chelsea to register an overall net profit of £129.6million despite revenue falling from £512.5million to £468.5million due to the men’s team not competing in the Champions League. The figures suggest the club had operating losses of about £170million.

The Premier League’s 20 clubs have decided against closing a loophole that allows clubs to register income from selling assets to sister companies. Chelsea previously registered the sale of two hotels to a sister company for £76.5million.

Chelsea are likely to be in breach of Uefa’s financial rules, however, as its rules do not allow for clubs to register income from selling assets to sister companies.

The club transferred ownership of the women’s team to Blueco 22 Midco Ltd on June 28, two days before the June 30 deadline for 2023-24 finances to be registered.

The paper value of Chelsea Women of more than £150million would make them the second most valuable women’s team in the world behind Angel City in the United States, where women’s football is commercially more successful — it was bought for £190million last year.

Chelsea said in a statement: “The profit for the year before taxation was £128.4million compared with a loss of £90.1million for the prior year as the club benefited from increased profit on disposal of player registrations and repositioning of Chelsea Football Club Women Ltd.