Thu 26 Jan 06
Roman’s expensive toy
They might be champions, but Chelsea FC still lost £100 million last year:
Chelsea will this morning announce that they made a loss of more than £100 million over the past year, marking a record in English football.
The Premiership champions, who in the previous 12 months had lost £88 million, will have spent £240 million on players since Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003 and after taking into account the money he spent on buying Chelsea, this means a total investment of more than £400 million by the Russian. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck confirmed the financial picture yesterday saying: “We announced a significant loss last year and we are going to announce a significant loss again.”
But Buck also confidently claimed the club were on target to meet Abramovich’s plan to make Chelsea profitable in five years. The latest figures do not include the new shirt deal with Samsung, which came into force this season and brings in £11 million per year, or the Adidas deal which brings in £10 million per year.
£100 million comes out to C$204,606,783.64, in case you were wondering. I’m starting to think the old adage about motor sport - “the way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a big fortune” - applies to football, too.
Damian P.
