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Chelsea book £342 million loss for 24/25 financial year

You just know that had Roman still been the owner and spent the same £1.5 billion that Clearlake did, we wouldn't have plunged down the table and out of the CL ..

Evissy maintained that things HAD to change.

In fact, when it came to transfer spending it didn't change, it continued and broke records, the amount they spent should have propelled us into title contenders.

And Evissy's big error, like Clearlake, was to continually tell everyone how awful it was under Roman.
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Roman had already started to change the spending model to adapt to the PSR rules. I think he saw that coming and perhaps that was one of the big incentives to creating the strong academy. He had set the club up so that we could in theory just promote the best of the academy players and align that with a few experienced signings from time to time. The summer after 2022 we would have seen some departures regardless of him being forced out. But the reaction would have been very different with just a few squad tweaks as needed. Instead, Blueco chose to bulldoze everything and do it their own way because they knew so much better than everybody else.

 
So we shall get a shirt sponsor in the summer and all will be well.
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More likely to be these

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Than these though

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I don't think United are ideal to compare us to. They are also in a big mess behind the scenes. Things look a bit better for them in short term. Their signings last summer were decent and they look well placed to make Champs League next season. They also have a much bigger stadium etc. But they do have massive debt, a large wage bill, and their squad looks less favorable once you take out a few first teamers. Remains to be seen how they will do with European football to balance next season.
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Difference with United is they are a much bigger club than us.

We are the 6th biggest club in England. If things do hit the fan financially, and we get relegated, it will be at a minimum decades until we compete at the top again.

United can drop out for a few years and will always bounce back. With our small stadium and not massive fan base, we could easily experience a journey like Leeds.

 
Interestingly both have a pretty low profile from the boardroom. Its not often you see John Henry spouting bo**ocks about a subject he knows nothing about, making himself look ridiculous.
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Agreed. They are showing that good ownership is not limited by nationality. Thy are both doing good jobs with their respective clubs.

 
Interestingly both have a pretty low profile from the boardroom. Its not often you see John Henry spouting bo**ocks about a subject he knows nothing about, making himself look ridiculous.
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Low profile is key. The best thing about old Roman was that he never said nuffink. Lets face it, Roman was a nasty b'stard and a criminal and he planned to sell Chels long before he was forced to. Don't be fooled - He was not the nicest bloke, but he had the good sense to keep quiet. These new lads really are mouthy pratts and thats what we hate about them. You're not going to find "nice" owners/capitalists but they could have some decorum.

 
Low profile is key. The best thing about old Roman was that he never said nuffink. Lets face it, Roman was a nasty b'stard and a criminal and he planned to sell Chels long before he was forced to. Don't be fooled - He was not the nicest bloke, but he had the good sense to keep quiet. These new lads really are mouthy pratts and thats what we hate about them. You're not going to find "nice" owners/capitalists but they could have some decorum.
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AND. . . .We had Ken Bates and he was freaking annoying and mouthy too, but even he is nothing on this new crowd.

Bring back the electric fences.

 
From " The boys of the King's Road " on substack.....vvv

"I said in the first part of this last week, there was never any doubt about Abramovich’s objectives. Winning was what really mattered, though there were nods to doing it while making the club sustainable along the way. We did actually make a profit in several years between 2014 and 2018, with record turnover and profits being recorded in the 2017/18 financial year.

If the current owners are serious about sustainability, that’s going to require a halt to the crazy number of players they sign. Champions League qualification will be needed in most seasons, along with the sale of players in most years. That’s right, it will require the model we had under Abramovich in the years after FFP. Their current path isn’t going to cut it ""

 
Arsenal are a well run club with American owners. Same with Liverpool
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They just posted a loss following their best season in 20+ years. Liverpool were well run under Klopp. They still rely on decisions made 7-8 years ago. It remains to be seen if that will continue, however, FSG are also one of the few American investment firms with actual expertise in sports management.

The good news is that debt doesn't matter if it leads to return on investment. £342m will be a drop in the ocean if it puts in structures that allow us to compete for a CL, or a league, or trophies in general.

The bad news is....

 
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I think it's worthwhile to clarity that the club didn't actually lose £342m. The club are right to say that, in the real world, the club made a operating profit thanks to the sale of the women's team (£200m) and the hotels (£76m). A holding company injecting cash by buying out seperate arms of its core business is a normal and common practice. It's only in UEFA's nerd money FFP rules that this common practice is made illicit, and ironically it's only necessary because the made-up rules don't allow direct investment.

However I don't think we should let that distract from the actual issues:

  • These circumstances can never be repeated, other than selling Cobham or the stadium...
  • We have no/poor sponsors. Deals are late in the season with very low-tier, niche firms. The idea that the club was waiting to leverage the CWC was a lie all along.
  • Player trading is being used to prop up the paper valuation of the club with little regard to sporting success
  • BlueCo is not a united front, and it's clear that Clearlake are calling the shots.
  • Like I have said since the beginning, there is no actual strategy. They are simply doing things differently for the sake of it, to extract maximum credit in the rare event things go well. It's more important to them to sell the Clearlake "brand" than to profit from success.
Unlike most though I am not too worried about the club's supposed debt to other parties. The failing American economy/AI Bubble is a more immediate and serious threat to our finances than continued lack of success, given the owner's investment profiles. The worst case scenario is that this mob are forced to sell and the club regroups in a lower tier, which might actually make it about the football once again.

 
Kroncke’s have only been at Arsenal since 2018 and I believe the last two seasons were the only time they’ve genuinely backed the manager.

 
I think it's worthwhile to clarity that the club didn't actually lose £342m. The club are right to say that, in the real world, the club made a operating profit thanks to the sale of the women's team (£200m) and the hotels (£76m). A holding company injecting cash by buying out seperate arms of its core business is a normal and common practice. It's only in UEFA's nerd money FFP rules that this common practice is made illicit, and ironically it's only necessary because the made-up rules don't allow direct investment.

However I don't think we should let that distract from the actual issues:

  • These circumstances can never be repeated, other than selling Cobham or the stadium...
  • We have no/poor sponsors. Deals are late in the season with very low-tier, niche firms. The idea that the club was waiting to leverage the CWC was a lie all along.
  • Player trading is being used to prop up the paper valuation of the club with little regard to sporting success
  • BlueCo is not a united front, and it's clear that Clearlake are calling the shots.
  • Like I have said since the beginning, there is no actual strategy. They are simply doing things differently for the sake of it, to extract maximum credit in the rare event things go well. It's more important to them to sell the Clearlake "brand" than to profit from success.
Unlike most though I am not too worried about the club's supposed debt to other parties. The failing American economy/AI Bubble is a more immediate and serious threat to our finances than continued lack of success, given the owner's investment profiles. The worst case scenario is that this mob are forced to sell and the club regroups in a lower tier, which might actually make it about the football once again.
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I am waiting till we see the CFC accounts for 24/25 as opposed to what I suspect were the BlueCo numbers for 23/24.

It’s worth noting that the BlueCo loss to a significant degree was paper transactions . For instance a sum of in excess of £100m in those 23/24 losses was in respect of Goodwill impairment.

 
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