Chelsea announced “extraordinary expenses and loss of revenue” in their yearly accounts due to sanctions placed on former owner Roman Abramovich last season.
The Blues detailed an overall net loss of £121.3million despite generating £123.2m profit in player trading in their annual financial results for the year ending June 2022.
Chelsea remain confident that they will continue to comply with UEFA and Premier League financial regulations despite spending a world-record £600m across the last two transfer windows.
That’s despite sanctions placed on Abramovich by the UK Government in March 2022 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw limits placed on the club.
Under a special licence issued by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, they couldn’t collect revenues from match activity, merchandising, events or commercial partnerships.
Chelsea also announced an unspecified one-off expense of £26.6m that impacted the club’s bottom line despite turnover increasing to £481.3m after sanctions - with the 2020/21 season partly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Player sales, including those of Tammy Abraham to AS Roma, Marc Guehi to Crystal Palace, Fikayo Tomori to AC Milan and Kurt Zouma to West Ham, helped minimise losses in a year that Romelu Lukaku was signed from Inter Milan in a then-club record £100m deal.
The new Boehly-Clearlake ownership group were only in place for the last month of the period that is covered in the latest accounts.
Chelsea are on UEFA's watchlist over their spending and currently sit 10th in the Premier League, facing a likely scenario of missing out on £100m in revenue by failing to qualify for next season's Champions League.
