Chelsea still owe Inter Milan up to £71million for the summer transfer of Romelu Lukaku.
Lukaku joined the Blues in a club-record £97.5m move from the Italian club in August, signing a five-year deal worth £200,000 per week.
His return to Stamford Bridge is yet to yield the desired results, with the Belgian striker contributing just 11 goals in 31 appearances across all competitions.
Chelsea ’s decision to shell out their biggest ever transfer fee now appears to be problematic following the UK government’s decision to sanction owner Roman Abramovich.
Abramovich, who is trying to sell the club he has owned since 2003, has had his assets frozen, with Chelsea forced to operate under strict financial rules.
The Blues cannot currently sell any tickets or merchandise, buy or sell players, or offer new contracts, while they are also operating under limits for match days.
Chelsea have taken a further hit through the withdrawal of sponsors Three and Hyundai, although their special sporting licence is allowing them to access television and prize money .
The club’s problems are made more severe by the amount of money they still owe in unpaid transfer fees, of which Lukaku is the most significant.
Inter’s financial documents, which were made public when they refinanced debt to access cash recently, reveals the nature of the deal between the two clubs for Lukaku.
Although Lukaku’s headline fee was widely reported as £97.5m, it is actually being paid off by Chelsea in five instalments of around £19m in a process called amortisation which is commonplace in football.
The Blues paid the first chunk straight away last summer, but the rest of the money is now owed to the financial institution Inter borrowed money from, not the Italian club itself.
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Chelsea still owe the remainder of the transfer fee and, in fact, the most recent accounts for Fordstam Limited show the problem is bigger than just Lukaku.
Fordstam, the company through which Abramovich has pumped £1.5bn of funding into Chelsea, had £104m of debts to creditors due for payment in the year from June 30, 2021.
However, the same accounts also show the other side of the coin: Chelsea’s good record of selling players.
That means the Blues are expecting £167m of income from clubs paying instalments for players they bought.
Nevertheless, the decision to spend big on Lukaku is yet to pay off seven months on.
The 28-year-old has struggled for consistency this season and publicly admitted unhappiness with Thomas Tuchel’s tactics in a contentious interview with Italian media.
He has now lost his place in the starting line-up to Kai Havertz, who scored a late winner in the 1-0 victory against Newcastle on Sunday.
