Chelsea have fallen to seventh in KPMG’s annual report of the most valuable football clubs, with Tottenham Hotspur closing the gap on their London rivals amid a warning of a “significant deterioration of profitability” for the Blues.
Roman Abramovich’s club are one of two sides in the top 10, along with Arsenal, to have not posted a year-on-year-increase and four in the top 20 on top of West Ham United and Leicester City.
Liverpool and Manchester City have surged clear of the Blues in the Football Benchmark report, while Manchester United remain the highest-ranked of nine Premier League teams in the top 30. Real Madrid are top overall.
Chelsea have an enterprise value of £1.88billion, a 0.4% year-on-year decrease, while Spurs have risen by 23% to £1.75bllion, according to KPMG.
The report describes enterprise value as “the sum of the market value of the owners’ equity, plus total debt, less cash and cash equivalents. It indicates what the business is worth regardless of the capital structure used to finance its operations.”
It continued: “Chelsea FC are suffering a stagnation of their EV, due to a significant deterioration of their profitability in 2018/19 (from a net profit of €28million to a net loss of €125million.”
However, the latest figures are based on the club being in the Europa League rather than Champions League last season - a factor that led to Spurs’ surge along with their lean operation costs under Daniel Levy’s stewardship.
The report added: "On the other hand, Tottenham Hotspur FC, runners up of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League, are climbing the ranking steadily in the latest seasons, driven by their remarkable revenue growth (a 103% increase in four years and 22% since last year) and their cost efficiency (39% staff costs to revenue ratio - the lowest in Europe), both metrics leading to record profit results."
KPMG also warned of difficult times ahead for clubs following the coronavirus pandemic with warnings over the transfer market in particular.
