A finance expert claims that Chelsea now need to make player sales after breaching UEFA’s rules already.
Adam Williams has been speaking on the situation involving profit and sustainability rules in football, as well as UEFA’s own version of them. It’s not just the FA rules that clubs need to stick to, they also have to follow the worldwide financial rules that are implemented by UEFA. And apparently Chelsea have already breached those.
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Chelsea have successfully navigated the Premier League’s financial hurdle with the help of doing things such as selling the Women’s football team and selling hotels etc, finding various loopholes. But apparently those little tricks are not allowed on UEFA’s side of things.
Chelsea need to sell players?
Speaking exclusively to The Chelsea Chronicle, finance expert Adam Williams has given an insight into Chelsea’s standings with UEFA, despite positive PSR news.
“The real problem is UEFA’s rules, which don’t recognise the artificial profit from the women’s team sale. Chelsea have already breached those rules and are under the terms of settlement, which, broadly speaking, means they have to break even financially over the next three years.
“Given that they have posted annual operating losses – that’s the loss before profit on player sales – of £200m since the takeover, that’s going to require a major recalibration to their strategy.
“If they breach the terms of that settlement, they can get hit with a further cash fine and be kicked out of the Champions League.
“The solution is players’ sales – we’re going to see a lot more sales. And I’d predict that it’s not just going to be peripheral squad players; there will be some superstars leaving too.“
Williams continued, sharing how Chelsea successfully navigated the Profit and Sustainability Rules for the 2024-25 Premier League season.
“PSR works in a rolling three-year cycle, over which you’re allowed to lose up to £105m, with allowances for spending on the academy, community, infrastructure and so on.
“Chelsea sold their women’s team to themselves in 2023-24, so it was slap bang in the middle of the PSR assessment window that the Premier League has now confirmed that they have complied with. They generated an artificial profit of £198m, leading to an overall profit for the business of £138m, so we always knew that there was zero chance of them failing here. Effectively, they broke PSR with that deal.
Without that accounting trick, they’d have posted a loss of £60m in 2023-24, added on to their £79m loss in 2022-23. They’d have been at negative £139m for the three-year period going into 2024-25.
“We don’t have the figures for 2024-25 yet, but they’ll have made a loss there too. So the women’s team sale has saved them from not one but two PSR breaches. In my view, that’s against the spirit of the rules, but you can’t blame Chelsea for taking advantage of the Premier League’s naivety when they were writing them.“
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