With Chelsea's yearly financial accounts being released comes an even clearer image of just how far Todd Boehly has to take the club from an administrative perspective. Although the report, which is yet to be revealed in full thus leaving some details to the imagination for now, shows a rise in key areas it is far from ideal for the new owners.
Finances since 2020 have been heavily impact by Covid-19, a point that Chelsea do not hide, but the further issue of being under Roman Abramovich's umbrella when the Russian oligarch was sanctioned in March 2022 has also had a major effect. The Blues had their hands tied during that period and addressed the situation and its affects in their statement.
"The results for the year have been impacted by the sanctions placed on the Club’s previous owner on 10 March 2022," it reads. "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.
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"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.
"Furthermore, 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. Towards the end of the sanctioned period, the Club was permitted to sell certain matchday tickets, with the Premier League committing to donate all revenue from these sales to charity."
Despite this the turnover from 2020/21 rose - with that period more heavily impacted by the global pandemic - to £481.3 million from £434.9 million the previous year. Commercial revenue increased to £177.1 million from £153.6m but that figure is still way below Chelsea's goal.
Clearlake Capital founder Jose Feliciano has made the desire to improve the club's finances and sustainability clear previously, saying: “We think we have an incredible opportunity to double revenue. We think we have one of the best media properties and sport properties in the world where we can get to a £1billion of revenue.”
Given the latest accounts, that would mean more than doubling the revenue of the club, something that appears to be near impossible given Manchester City were ranked as world leaders by Deloitte with an estimated £613m of turnover last year. Even for the best in the game at the current stage, such growth is off-the-scale.
How far out of the equation is this result for Boehly and Co in the future? Since 2008/09 the revenue at Chelsea has gone from £242.3m to the £481.3m for last year. That is a rise of 50.3% but during a time whereby TV deals have gone up by over £2.4bn in the same time. The numbers are certainly going in the right direction but to even get close to that magical figure will take a lot of growth.
Growth in revenue has been slow but gradual, which makes sense, but for a club that were world and European champions when Boehly took over, it is still below the desired amount. It is noticeable that at LA Dodgers the revenue took a steep rise after just over 18 months for Boehly and his partners in America.
Part of the way they did was by selling their own TV rights to a different company as the league's overall coverage, generating huge income but frustrating fans across the country who found it harder to watch the team. An equiavalent for Chelsea isn't available to the public yet but the Premier League itself has broadcast conundrums to solve, opening it up to inventive ideas from Boehly once more.
Further to that, between 2012 and 2015 the yearly income for the MLB side went from $245m (£200m) to $438m (£357m). This is an increase of over 56%. In the same time Chelsea went from £283m to £365.9m. Part of the Boehly-Dodgers plan was to majorly revamp the commercial, marketing and matchday revenue for the franchise, it worked and success followed on the field with higher spending than previously capable.
Chelsea have had no issues with spending big but to create an eco-system more suited to the Boehly model there are key things that will have to change in west London in order to accomodate the owners' expectations and plans.
To do this at Chelsea the need for a new stadium or expanded stadium is clear, meanwhile the sweeping changes behind the scenes at SW6 come from a position of overhauling what was a prehistoric and archaic strucure left behind by the previous regime. Abramovich, who waivered the £1.5bn of debt the club owed him, or he owed himself effectively, never had such financial aims.
Boehly, however, does. The growth of Chelsea's squad has seen a massively increased spend on wages, an area the club are trying to work on with incentivised contracts. None of this happens overnight though and even next year's accounts won't fully represent the changes that Boehly has planned.
What is evident from looking back at the final set of Abramovich-related accounts is that Boehly was correct when assessing the club and realising that there is plenty to be done behind-the-scenes.
The baseline is that Chelsea lost £153.4m last year and that has come down this year to £121.m. That figure alone does not tell the full story though with the club increasingly reliant on sales of youth players to generate large amounts of this yearly number. Given that having homegrown players in the team is also part of the club's goal it isn't something to bank on moving forward.
Given the potential exodus this summer it also shows the extent to which Boehly will have to make changes at the club, once more providing proof of just how large the challenge will be.
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