Chelsea post £121.3m loss due to sanctions on ex-owner Roman Abramovich

Pre­mier League side Chelsea will face an over­all net loss of £121.3m in 2021–22 due to ‘extra­or­di­nary expens­es and reduced rev­enues’, with the club owed to for­mer own­er Roman Abramovich It was to blame for the sanc­tions, it announced on Monday.

Russ­ian own­er Abramovich put the club up for sale in ear­ly March last year fol­low­ing Rus­si­a’s inva­sion of Ukraine, prompt­ing the British gov­ern­ment to intro­duce sanc­tions against Abramovich.

Chelsea were unable to sell tick­ets dur­ing that peri­od until the sale was com­plet­ed at the end of May, result­ing in reduced rev­enues and reduced oper­at­ing costs due to gov­ern­ment restrictions.

“Dur­ing this peri­od, the Club will be restrict­ed in a num­ber of areas includ­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, the sale of match­day and sea­son tick­ets, mer­chan­dise sales, accep­tance of event book­ings and enter­ing into agree­ments with play­ers and com­mer­cial spon­sor part­ners. As a result, we have col­lec­tive­ly incurred extra­or­di­nary costs and lost rev­enue,” Chelsea said in a statement.

“Some of these con­straints are also expect­ed to have finan­cial impli­ca­tions in the years to come, as con­straints on sign­ing new con­tracts will have long-term implications.”

Chelsea’s turnover was £481.3m, up from £434.9m last year, large­ly due to high­er com­mer­cial and match­day income as fans returned to sta­di­ums after the COVID-19 out­break said to have increased to

The club’s com­mer­cial income also increased to £177.1m dri­ven by net spon­sor­ship income from new deals and renewals from exist­ing partners.

“Increased rev­enues were off­set by high­er oper­at­ing costs, includ­ing match­day and non-match­day costs due to the resump­tion of oper­a­tions, and high­er staff costs,” the club added.

“In light of the above, the Group record­ed a loss before play­er impair­ments and spe­cial charges of £26.6m for the year end­ed 30 June 2022, result­ing in an over­all net loss of £121.3m.”

“Despite the oper­a­tional chal­lenges of loss­es and sanc­tions over the years, the club remains com­pli­ant with UEFA and Pre­mier League finan­cial rules.”