How much have Chelsea spent during Roman Abramovich time at the club?
FT Desk
- Updated: 4 Mar 2022 05:40 CST
- 3 min read
There’s no doubt that when Roman Abramovich finally sells Chelsea it will be the end of an era for the English club.
Prior to the Russian billionaires arrival in 2003, Chelsea hadn’t won a league title in 48 years, but over the course of the last 19 years the Stamford Bridge side have hoovered up five Premier League titles, five FA Cup trophies and won the Champions League on two occasions.
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Undoubtedly, almost all of that success has been down to the club’s spending power under Abramovich, who has personally funded signings and the wages of some of European football’s best players during his time as owner of the club.
But how much money have Chelsea spent during Abramovich’s time at the club and what is the club’s overall net spend thanks to the Russian billionaire’s money?
How much have Chelsea spent during Abramovich’s reign?
The graph above is a timeline of Chelsea’s net spend since Abramovich started signing the cheques at Stamford Bridge in 2003.
As we can see, the club spent a huge amount of money in the first two seasons, with a net spend in the market of around €330 million and since then that figure has only ticked up with every passing year, with a few notable exceptions.
Chelsea did make a minor transfer profit in 2008/09 and 2014/15 and then made no a huge profit of €112m in 2019/20, following the sales of Eden Hazard to Real Madrid. But for the most part the club have run at a net loss in the transfer market for the past 19 years.
So much so that over the course of Abramovich’s time at the club, Chelsea’s net spend in the transfer market stands at around €1.05 billion. Which certainly isn’t a bad return for all the trophies the Stamford Bridge side have won in that time.
