{"id":386170,"date":"2026-01-23T14:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/386170\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T14:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:04:11","slug":"new-financial-reveal-speaks-volumes-as-mysterious-199m-chelsea-deal-under-scrutiny-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/386170\/","title":{"rendered":"New financial reveal speaks volumes as ‘mysterious’ \u00a3199m Chelsea deal under scrutiny again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chelsea have used various methods to get around Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) restrictions.<\/p>\n

Virtually from day one of the BlueCo<\/a> era, the new owners showed that they were determined to bring a private equity approach \u2013 where rules are often bent or pushed to their limits \u2013 to football regulation.<\/p>\n

Chelsea<\/a> have consistently signed players to ultra-long contracts. Before the Premier League and UEFA closed the loophole<\/a>, that allowed Todd Boehly<\/a>, Behdad Eghbali<\/a> and their team of accountants to spread a player\u2019s transfer fee over six, seven or eight years, reducing the short-term impact of big-money signings.<\/p>\n

Later on, Chelsea\u2019s owners<\/a> turned to selling club assets to themselves to book an artificial profit. The women\u2019s team and two hotels at Stamford Bridge inflated the club\u2019s bottom line by hundreds of millions after they were sold from one company in the Chelsea ownership structure to another.<\/p>\n

BlueCo have lost over \u00a31bn since Chelsea takeover <\/p>\n

Is this sustainable? What’s Clearlake’s masterplan to claw back these losses?<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n

As a result, the Blues have avoided sanctions from the Premier League for breaching PSR. However, under UEFA\u2019s equivalent rules, Chelsea have not been so lucky.<\/p>\n

A settlement was reached in the summer which will, after this season, require Chelsea to register a positive player trading balance<\/a>, a record which despite all the churn in their squad has been beyond them so far.<\/p>\n

For BlueCo, the aim is that the investment will generate a huge return for their partners in the long term.<\/p>\n

\"ChelseaPhoto by Robin Jones\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

And as well as being used as a trading chip in the accounts\u2019 PSR jiggery-pokery, the owners think the women\u2019s team could be key to that grand vision.<\/p>\n

Kieran Maguire questions BlueCo\u2019s valuation of Chelsea Women after Deloitte release new financial data<\/p>\n

This week, Deloitte released their annual Football Money League<\/a>, which ranks clubs by revenue.<\/p>\n

Chelsea\u2019s Women<\/a> \u2013 whose domestic double last season saw the team win the Women\u2019s Super League for the sixth consecutive season \u2013 came 2nd to Arsenal in the women\u2019s edition, with revenue up 90 per cent on 2025 to \u00a321.3m. <\/p>\n

In the wider analysis, the wider club itself came 10th, with revenues of \u00a3508m.<\/p>\n

In football finance, revenue multiples are often used as an entry point into valuing a club. When BlueCo bought Chelsea in 2022, they paid \u00a32.5bn, which equated to a revenue multiple of around 5x based on the financial accounts for 2022-23.<\/p>\n

But when BlueCo sold the Women\u2019s team to themselves last year, the transaction valued the club at \u00a3199m. Based on Chelsea Women\u2019s 2023-24 accounts, that was a revenue multiple of around 17x.<\/p>\n

\"ChelseaPhoto by Harriet Lander \u2013 Chelsea FC\/Chelsea FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A minority investment from Alexis Ohanian was used to justify the value of the deal to the Premier League\u2019s Fair Market Value panel, who are tasked with ensuring deals aren\u2019t artificially inflated with a view to circumventing PSR.<\/p>\n

Deloitte revealing Chelsea Women\u2019s 2024-25 turnover means the \u00a3199m valuation represents a revenue multiple just short of 10x.<\/p>\n

Some analysts were sceptical about the valuation, though many also pointed out the potential of the women\u2019s game which, compared to the men\u2019s is still in a growth phase.<\/p>\n

So, is 10x revenue multiple getting closer to the true value of the women\u2019s side of the club? And how will history judge Chelsea\u2019s decision to separate the business of the women\u2019s team from the men\u2019s, a move which BlueCo at the time described as a \u201cstrategic growth plan\u201d? <\/p>\n

\u201cI still find that valuation difficult to justify,\u201d says University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to the Chelsea Chronicle.<\/p>\n

BlueCo value the Chelsea Women\u2019s team at nearly \u00a3200m <\/p>\n

What do the owners need to do to take the Women’s team to the next level?<\/p>\n

\"ChelseaPhoto by Harriet Lander \u2013 Chelsea FC\/Chelsea FC via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at where Chelsea are playing and how many people they are playing in front of and the business model looks very reliant on success in European competition. That\u2019s what delivers the international broadcasting revenues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sale was a necessity at the time in order to comply with domestic PSR. It\u2019s very noticeable that because it was excluded from European PSR, they breached. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe world of business and networking moves in mysterious ways. You get some strange alliances and I think we\u2019ve seen that with how Chelsea have operated at times, including with this deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n

Receive a digest of our best Chelsea content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea have used various methods to get around Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) restrictions. Virtually from day one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[135704,218,12042,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-386170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-blueco","tag-football","tag-football-finance","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}