PREMIER LEAGUE:After nine years and more than £1 billion (€1.25 billion) of investment, Chelsea are in the black for the first time in the free-spending Roman Abramovich era, thanks to their Champions League victory, a rare profit on transfers and improved commercial deals.
The chairman, Bruce Buck, claimed yesterday that the modest profit of £1.4 million for the last financial year, compared to a £67.7 million loss the previous year, showed they were on course to meet Uefa’s new financial fair play obligations.
Those rules, designed to limit rampant wage inflation and cases of what Uefa president Michel Platini calls “financial doping”, require clubs to break even within an “acceptable deviation” of €45 million over three years.
The selective figures for Chelsea, which cannot be analysed in full until lodged with the UK Companies House next week, show the club banked a record turnover of £255.7 million, compared to £222.3 million the previous year, and overtook Arsenal to become Europe’s fifth-largest club in terms of revenue.
That figure was boosted not only by Champions League prize money and ticket revenue but Uefa’s improved TV rights deal, new commercial deals and a profit on transfer dealings of £28.8 million.
Guardian Service
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