"Essentially, I’ve never seen a set of accounts with losses that big in football," Dr Rob Wilson told i when analysing Chelsea's financial results for the 2022/23 season.
"You can go back to 2011, when Man City had a wages-to-turnover ratio of 198 per cent. That’s probably the only comparison I’ve got.
"I’ve never seen a set of football club financial statements quite like it. It’s as bad as it looks. I’ve checked them with a colleague, and neither of us know how they’re going to pass Financial Sustainability Regulations if they play in Europe or PSR in the Premier League.
"I’m not sure how they’re going to do it. It might be mitigation because of the war [given the sanctions placed on Abramovich] and the takeover, but their transfer receipts [since Boehly and Clearlake Capital bought the club] are £1.119bn, even though they’re split over two sets of accounts. It’s insane.
"I said before they would have to sell around £100m of playing talent at least [before 30 June 2024]. That’s looking a conservative figure at the moment. Obviously, the wages play a major part in it as well, and they’re around £400m, so they need to bring that down, but there’s a huge amount of work to do.
"I don’t quite understand why they felt they were able to sign the cheques given the regulatory practices that we’ve seen with both PSR and FFP."
Chelsea announced a pre-tax loss of £90.1m, down from £121.4m the previous year. Although the club tries to paint a positive picture, they lost £271.5m in the most recent period for the Profit and Sustainability Rules, way more than the permitted £105m loss.
