Chelsea could hide behind the loss of profits from Antonio Rudiger’s free transfer to Real Madrid ahead of a potential Premier League inquiry regarding the club’s sizeable losses last season.
The west London outfit recently revealed that the club had posted a £121m loss across the 2021/22 season. Chelsea had a deficit of £153.4m the previous year and only made a £32.5m profit during the 2019/20 campaign under a transfer embargo imposed for breaching 150 rules.
The club could once again come under fire as the three-year rolling tally of their accounts shows an unflattering £241.9m loss, which greatly exceeds the allowed limit of £105m according to the Premier League’s financial fair play rules.
However, Chelsea have launched a preemptive offensive to counter any potential punishment surrounding their latest finances by blaming the government sanctions placed on the club’s previous owner Roman Abramovich in March 2022.
The Russian oligarch Abramovich was one of several individuals the British government penalised after Vladimir Putin led the state to an invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. Chelsea, bought by Abramovich in 2003, had their operations hampered by the sanctions and are expected to use these restrictions as an explanation for why Rudiger had to leave on a free transfer as part of the club’s attempts to justify the huge losses according to the Daily Mail.
“The results for the year have been impacted by the sanctions placed on the Club’s previous owner on 10 March 2022,” Chelsea’s statement pointed out. “As a result of the sanctions, the Club was required to operate within the limitations of a special licence issued by the UK government. These restrictions were in place until the completion of the Club’s sale on 30 May 2022.
“During this period, the Club was restricted in a number of areas including, but not limited to, its ability to sell matchday and season tickets, sell merchandise, accept event bookings, as well as sign contracts with players and commercial sponsorship partners, which collectively resulted in extraordinary expenses and loss of revenue.”
After five years on Chelsea’s books, in which time the Germany international won five trophies, Rudiger was officially announced as a Real Madrid player on 2 June 2022. Chelsea received no transfer fee for the then-29-year-old as his contract was about to expired – although, the Blues are set to argue that Rudiger’s deal was only allowed to run out as negotiations for an extension were curtailed due to the government sanctions.
Given that Rudiger joined Real Madrid before 30 June 2022, and so inside the financial year of 2021/22, Chelsea believe they have grounds to argue that a lack of a transfer fee directly impacted their losses for that season. Andreas Christensen joined Barcelona in the same summer on a free transfer but arrived in Catalonia on 4 July 2022, outside the window of interest.
Chelsea are yet to be charged with anything from the Premier League or UEFA – the European footballing governing body which has its own financial fair play rules – but are thought to be bracing themselves for scrutiny.
In the initial statement released with the 2021/22 accounts, Chelsea were keen to protect themselves against future financial difficulties by claiming that “…some of these limitations are also expected to have an impact on the financials in the following years due to the long-term impact from restrictions on entering into new contractual arrangements.”
