Chelsea suffered the highest pre-tax losses in the history of English football in the 2024-25 season.
Financial figures released by UEFA revealed Chelsea recorded a pre-tax loss of £355million last year. The only time a European club has ever posted higher losses was when Barcelona lost £484m over the duration of the 2020-21 season.
The European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report listed the ten UEFA clubs with the largest losses over the period.
Despite the concerning numbers, Chelsea, who are run by the BlueCo consortium co-owned by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, are confident they will not have to sell their best players in order to offset the losses.
They justify the numbers as “one-off, non-cash accounting adjustments” required to meet UEFA guidelines.
Chelsea’s own financial accounts have deviated from the numbers included in UEFA accounting over recent seasons, partly due to the fact that the sales of non-cash assets does not contribute to UEFA accounting.
Chelsea have previously sold Stamford Bridge hotels and the women’s team to their own parents company to help comply with English football financial regulations, but these sorts of manoeuvres do not apply for UEFA accounting.
While the UEFA report showed the club brought in £511m, Chelsea’s income from matchday revenue, commercial revenue, ticket sales and merchandising was lower than English football’s other biggest clubs.
Broadcast revenue was the only area in which Chelsea performed impressively in comparison to their rivals. Participation and victory at the FIFA Club World Cup boosted income to £192m, placing them second-highest on the list in Europe for broadcast revenue, behind only Manchester City.
Chelsea believe they comply with all regulations and will meet all obligations under their existing settlement agreement with UEFA, which the Blues entered into on July 4, 2025 following financial breaches in previous seasons.
Internally, there is a strong confidence at Chelsea that Cole Palmer and other star players will not have to be sold as a book-balancing measure.
Chelsea have worked to lower their wage bill during the BlueCo era, allowing for amortisation by offering longer-term contracts spread over multiple accounting years and also structuring them differently with a conscious tilt in the wage breakdown from high basic wage to greater performance-related bonuses.
