Chelsea confirm world-record €235m sale that has left experts STUNNED

Robin Bairner

Updated: 5 Apr 2025 10:15 BST
3 min read

Chelsea look in a strong position to comply with the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) following a stunning €235 million sale that has left experts gobsmacked.

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The Stamford Bridge side have reported a post-tax profit of €152m thanks largely in part to the sale of Chelsea Women to BlueCo for a record €235m.

Chelsea had been battling to meet PSR regulations but following this healthy profit, the Stamford Bridge side are in good shape to do so, despite turning in a loss of €105m for the previous year. Had they failed to do so, they could have faced a damaging points deduction.

The sale of Chelsea Women to BlueCo, which still needs approval subject to the Premier League clearing it as fair market value, is set to cause controversy.

The club’s accounts report the sale as €235m, which is the biggest price ever paid for a women’s football team. It eclipses the €225m that Willow Bay and Bob Iger paid to secure the rights to NWSL franchise Angel City FC in July 2024.

Doubt cast on Chelsea valuation: I’d laugh at the numbers!

Chelsea were reported to have internally valued the women’s team at €176m (£150m), yet the sale has been completed for substantially more than this figure.

Even at this lower price, football finance experts were stunned by the club’s estimate.

If I were working on the buy side and trying to get the price down, I would laugh at numbers

- Football finance expert Kieran Maguire (The Times)

Kieran Maguire suggested that a more reasonable price for the club would be between €23.5-35m.

“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 told The Times. “The rules are either very poorly written, or Chelsea knows something about the women’s game that other observers are thinking is very ambitious.

“There was a significant gap in Chelsea’s finances and they had to pull a rabbit out of the hat somehow.

“If I were working on the buy side and trying to get the price down, I would laugh at numbers. 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.’”

Chelsea Women were ranked third in the Deloitte ranking of the richest women’s football teams with a revenue of €13.4m, a fraction of the €550m brought in by their male equivalents.