English Premier League heavyweights Chelsea made the largest pre-tax loss in league history of £262.4 million ($346.3 million) in 2024-25.
The previous biggest loss for a Premier League club was £197.5 million, suffered by Manchester City in 2011.
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This Chelsea loss comes despite the London giants bringing in £490.9 million in revenue, which Chelsea claims is their second-highest income total ever.
The club did not release their full accounts for 2024-25 yesterday, merely stating that a selection of figures for the 12 months up to June 30, 2025, was offered.
Chelsea have also said that revenue will reach record levels in the next set of accounts, which will incorporate £85 million from the men's team winning the FIFA Club World Cup next summer, as well as £80 million in broadcast revenue from the lucrative pan-European UEFA Champions League.
In the 2023-24 season, Chelsea made a profit of £128.4 million – although the fact they turned a profit was primarily down to the club selling its women's team to BlueCo (the entity controlled by club owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital).
The club have said they expect to be compliant with Premier League profit and sustainability rules, through which clubs are allowed to make an aggregate loss of £105 million over three years (calculated differently from how the pre-tax loss is arrived at).
However, European soccer's governing body UEFA fined Chelsea around £27 million at the start of the current season for breaching their own set of squad-cost ratio rules.
In terms of the different revenue segments, the only detail provided has been that matchday income for the club increased to £86.8 million last season.
Operating expenses, meanwhile, have risen significantly, Chelsea have acknowledged, with the club saying this has come largely through "increased matchday costs, due to a return to European football."
The Chelsea women's team, meanwhile, lost £17.1 million last season, with their revenue reaching £21.3 million (up £9.8 million from 2023-24). This came during a season in which they won the Women's Super League (WSL).
Matchday revenues for that side increased to a record total of £3 million.
Chelsea's men's team currently sit sixth in the 20-team Premier League, while the women's side are second in the WSL.
Early March saw Chelsea expand their partnership with TMGM, the online trading and investment services provider, which is now the men's team's back-of-shirt sponsor.
Last month also saw Chelsea fined £10.75 million and handed down a one-year suspended transfer ban by the English Football Association, for breaking various financial rules between 2011 and 2018, when the club were owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Elsewhere in the Premier League, struggling Tottenham Hotspur recorded a loss for 2024-25 – after taxation and player trading was taken into account – of £94.7 million.
This comes following a loss in 2023-24 of £26.2 million.
Tottenham currently sit 17th in the 2025-26 Premier League, and as such are in extreme danger of being relegated to the second-tier Championship.
Last season, the loss came despite revenue increasing by 7%, to £565.3 million – the matchday revenue and commercial revenue segments saw year-on-year increases, but TV and media income dropped from 2023-24.
Commercial income came to £277.1 million, TV and media revenues to £127 million, and matchday income amounted to £126.5 million.
Operating expenses, meanwhile, increased year-on-year by 15%, coming to £521.5 million.
