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Record profit at Chelsea

Roman Abramovich pumped another £63.1m into Chelsea last season despite the club making a record profit, although this was reliant on player sales. Abramovich has put money into Chelsea every year since he became owner in 2003.

Nevertheless, his investment is surprising given that Chelsea made a profit of £62m last season with a record turnover of £443.4m, up £22.7m. The size of Chelsea's debt to Abramovich has now grown to £1.13 billion.

A sign of the times in that Abramovich didn’t pay for his hospitality box in 2017/18 as a hostile London environment to Russian oligarchs resulted in him rarely being seen in London.

The wage bill was up 11 per cent to £244.1m as new players signed on big contracts. This represented an acceptable 55 per cent of turnover. Directors pay more than tripled.

Chelsea spent a net £125m on transfers last summer. Their squad was valued at £843m, up from £445m the previous year.

Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball reveals, 'Chelsea financial results shows the club extracted more money per fan over the season (£1,781) than any other club. Arsenal were top in 2017, but lack of Champions League participation means unlikely to leapfrog CFC when Arsenal publish their results (which are late).'

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