Chelsea scandal moves from disgraceful to something far far worse as new details emerge | OneFootball

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.