Chelsea face ‘more than challenging’ bid to meet Uefa’s financial rules

Chelsea are facing a challenge to comply with Uefa’s financial rules after the European governing body confirmed that it does not allow clubs to register income from selling assets to sister companies.
The Premier League has yet to close loopholes that have allowed Chelsea to register the sale of two hotels to a sister company for £76.5million, and to sell the women’s team to the club’s parent company.
Uefa confirmed that its rules did not allow for clubs to register income from selling assets to sister companies, but stressed that all cases would have to be assessed individually by its independent panel. Such transactions are also banned by the English Football League for clubs in the Championship, League One and League Two.
Any sanction or settlement for a breach of Uefa’s financial rules would not affect Chelsea in this season’s Conference League, but would be applied before next season.
Uefa’s club financial control board has a range of sanctions at its discretion ranging from a warning or fine up to excluding a club from European competition. In 2018 AC Milan agreed a settlement with Uefa to serve a one-year ban from European football, but that was for several breaches of Financial Fair Play rules.
Chelsea’s Uefa challenges are also greater because the European body has stricter rules than the Premier League in terms of the amount that clubs can lose.
Under the new “football earnings” rule, which has replaced Uefa’s Financial Fair Play system, clubs in Europe this season will be allowed to have lost a maximum of €40million (about £34.5million) over the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. That compares with £105million over three years in England’s top flight.
Kieran Maguire, a football finance author, said: “Chelsea’s position in terms of compliance with Uefa’s Financial Sustainability Rules could be more than challenging given that Uefa are not as flexible when it comes to real estate sales to related or associated parties.
“This could also apply if the women’s team has been sold to another part of the Clearlake-Boehly empire.”
Chelsea have been approached for comment, but the club’s chairman, Todd Boehly, stated in the club’s most recent accounts published in April that they expect to comply with Uefa’s rules.
He said: “The club continues to balance success on the field together with the financial imperatives of complying with Uefa and Premier League financial regulations. The club has complied with these since their inception in 2012 and expects to do so in the foreseeable future.”
The Premier League has yet to approve the sale of the hotels more than a year after it was registered by Chelsea — the league has to agree that it was of fair market value. The sale of the women’s team took place on June 28, two days before the end of the financial year.
Chelsea made an £89.8million loss in the 2022-23 season and had no Champions League income last season having earned £81million from Europe the year before. They have also been spending heavily once more in this transfer window.
In September 2022, Chelsea were placed on a “watchlist” by Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body among 19 European clubs who escaped action only because of Covid-related allowances. However, as they failed to qualify for Europe for the 2022-23 season they were not liable to any enforcement of Uefa’s financial rules.
In June last year, Uefa closed an amortisation loophole that allowed clubs to spread the cost of a transfer fee over the length of the player’s contract — Uefa imposed a five-year maximum for players signed after July 1. That meant that Chelsea will be able to split the £115million fee for signing Moisés Caicedo over only five years instead of the eight years of his contract.