Chelsea accounts reflect £28m

Despite the looming impact of Uefa's financial fair play (FFP) regulations, Chelsea's full accounts show that Roman Abramovich finds it hard to break one expensive habit – it cost the club £28m to sack Carlo Ancelotti in the summer and hire his replacement, André Villas-Boas.



The £28m it cost to pay off Ancelotti and his back-room staff and compensate Porto for the acquisition of Villas-Boas takes to around £64m the total Chelsea have paid out in hiring and firing managers in the last four years alone.



The club's full results to the end of June 2011, filed at Companies House on Wednesday, show that the club incurred £41.9m of exceptional, one-off losses that had a "significant impact" on the overall size of the losses.



Chelsea revealed last week that it had marginally reduced overall losses to £67.7m from £70.9m the previous year and increased revenues to £222.3m from £205.8m, thanks to a rise in Champions League and television income.



Besides the pay-offs related to Ancelotti's departure, other exceptional items included in the accounts include £7.4m to write down the value of player registrations and £6.4m to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. The payment to HMRC is one of a number of sizeable payments made by Premier League clubs to settle the continuing issue over the taxation of image rights payments.



The club will point to the fact that without the impact of one-off costs that are unlikely to be repeated, with Chelsea saying that Villas-Boas will remain in charge regardless of where they finish this season, they would be making significant progress towards the goal of breaking even. With those exceptional payments taken out of the equation, Chelsea are also able to claim that wages are down by £4.4m on last year and operating expenses down by £7m.



Those cost-cutting measures are partially offset by the fact that player amortisation – the cost of transfers spread over the course of a contract – increased by £2.1m, partly as a result of the splurge on Fernando Torres and David Luiz in January 2011. The accounts also note that since the end of the financial year covered by the 2010-11 figures Chelsea have spent £64.65m on players including Juan Mata, Raul Meireles and Romelu Lukaku and recouped £25.6m through player sales.



The current season, 2011-12, is the first that will be considered by Uefa's accountants with regard to its new FFP rules. Under these, clubs will be permitted to lose only up to €45m over two seasons as long as those losses are covered by their owners. The scale of permitted losses will then be reduced gradually for each three-year qualifying period.



Uefa will begin examining accounts in 2013-14, with 2014-15 the first season when potential sanctions could come into force. Uefa has proposed an escalating scale of possible sanctions, from a fine to possible suspension from European competition.



Chelsea insiders continue to claim the club is making progress towards break-even and their chairman, Bruce Buck, said last week: "The club is focused on complying with the requirements of Uefa's financial fair play regulations while maintaining its ability to challenge for major trophies. We would expect this to be reflected in our results for the current financial year."