Chelsea have pulled a financial rabbit out of the hat

04/02/2025 03:59 AM

Chelsea's valuation of their women's team, which helped them to avoid breaking Profitability and Sustainability Rules, has been greeted with scepticism by football finance experts.

Chelsea revealed on Monday that they made £198.7million by selling subsidiaries to the club's parent company, with the transactions helping them to avoid a PSR breach. It is believed the women's team were valued at considerably more than £150million.  PSR allow a club to lose £105million over three seasons, or £35million per season, on a rolling basis.

The valuation of the team has provoked surprise. Kieran Maguire, the football finance guru, would have expected a figure of between £20million and £30million. That would be about double Chelsea Women's 2023-24 revenue, and therefore comparable to the £305million for which Newcastle United (men's and women's teams) were sold in 2021, when their turnover was £140.2million.

"The women's game is a start-up so perhaps we would expect a slightly higher multiplier but there still seems to be a big gap," Maguire said. "The rules are either very poorly written, or Chelsea knows something about the women's game that other observers are thinking is very ambitious."

Maguire added that when Chelsea were purchased by Todd Boehly's consortium for £2.5billion in 2022, they paid £5.20 for every £1 of revenue. Chelsea Women, who were taken over by the club's parent company, have been valued at about £22.50 for every £1. "That is a very, very high multiple," Maguire said.

Indeed, Chelsea's valuation aids their PSR outlook. "There was a significant gap in Chelsea's finances and they had to pull a rabbit out of the hat somehow," Maguire said.

However, as Maguire stresses, the club have not broken any Premier League rules. Chelsea would assert that their valuation, which was audited by one of the "big four" accounting firms, reflects the women's team's rising value. They have won the WSL for five consecutive seasons and are top of the table this term with four games remaining.

"If I were working on the buy side and trying to get the price down, I would laugh at numbers," Maguire said. "But Chelsea have got the benefit of being on both the buy side and sell side. And they would just say, 'We think it's a fair price, prove otherwise.'"