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Chelsea makes record pre-tax loss for a top flight team

Chelsea Football Club’s holding company has posted a record pre-tax loss for a Premier League team, underlining the scale of the task at hand for its US owners and the wider struggles of English top-flight clubs to report profits.

Chelsea FC Holdings reported a pre-tax loss of £262.4mn in the financial year ended June 2025 despite revenues increasing to £490.9mn from £468.5mn a year earlier, according to a statement by the club on Wednesday.   This was the club’s second-highest revenue figure in history, boosted by higher broadcasting income thanks to finishing fourth in the league.

The losses are a blow for private capital firm Clearlake Capital and US financier Todd Boehly, who led the £2.5bn takeover of Chelsea from Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich in 2022.

“This is a record pre-tax loss for a Premier League football club,” football finance guru Kieran Maguire, told the Financial Times .“That’s significant in an era when clubs are trying to prove they are not just trophy assets, at a time when the government has introduced a football regulator.”

Chelsea expects to report revenues of about £700mn in 2025-26, according to a person close to the club, bolstered by its return to the lucrative Uefa Champions League and winning last summer’s Fifa Club World Cup. Chelsea was now profitable on an operating basis, the person added.

Chelsea is not alone among Premier League clubs in reporting heavy losses in the 2024-25 season. Tottenham Hotspur reported a pre-tax loss of £120.6mn; the holding company for West Ham United reported a pre-tax loss of £104mn; and Nottingham Forest’s parent company made a pre-tax loss of £71mn.

Chelsea sunk to the record loss despite making a £57.9mn profit from selling players on the transfer market. The west London club said operating expenses had “risen markedly” due to its return to European football.

A person close to Chelsea also pointed to non-cash adjustments and write downs on the value of certain players, but more details are expected within the club’s accounts. The pre-tax loss is wider than Manchester City’s prior record of £197mn in the 2010-11 season and Chelsea’s own £155.9mn deficit in the pandemic-hit 2020-

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