Stefan Borson: Chelsea ‘close’ to breaching financial rules again
Chelsea and Aston Villa are going to be “close” to breaching Uefa’s financial rules again this season.
Uefa confirmed in July Chelsea have been fined £26.7million and could be fined a further £51.2m if they don’t comply with the governing body’s rules in the next four years after breaching its financial regulations.
Meanwhile, Villa have been fined £9.5m, with the potential of a further £12.9m penalty if they fail to comply in a three-year period.
The punishments relate to a breach of Uefa’s football earnings regulations and its squad cost ratio, where clubs in European competitions were required to keep spending on player wages and fees to 80 per cent of revenue in 2024.
However, the control ratio dropped to 70 per cent in 2024-25 and will remain at that level moving forward.
Chelsea and Aston Villa failed to make ‘radical’ changes
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider Chelsea and Villa are going to be “close” to breaching Uefa’s squad cost control rules after failing to make “radical” changes.
Enzo Maresca’s side are competing in the Champions League this season, while Villa booked their place in the Europa League.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson said: “We know that Villa and Chelsea will continue to have the issues that they had last year when they breached, so those don’t go away just by the settlement.
“The settlement will be dealt with on the football earnings side of things. They won’t breach the early parts of the football earnings settlement agreement because the whole point of those agreements are that they set their targets and so they know they’re not going to breach them, so you can put that to one side.
“Chelsea and Villa just on the squad cost control legacy from having failed previously, if they failed previously, we know that you’re quite close unless you make radical changes.
“Neither of them have been able to make radical changes, so they’re going to be close again.”
Chelsea lost 3-1 to Bayern Munich in their opening Champions League game last week, while Unai Emery’s side will take on Bologna in their first Europa League match of the campaign on Thursday (25 September).
Chelsea and Aston Villa have agreed behind-the-scenes deals
Chelsea and Villa have both been making behind-the-scenes move to avoid breaching the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
Under the PSR rules, top-flight clubs are only permitted to make £105million of losses over a rolling three-year period.
Chelsea sold their women’s team to owners BlueCo in the summer of 2024 for around £200m, helping them turn their previous £90m loss for 2022-23 into a £128m profit for 2023-24.
However, Uefa rejected the women’s team sale in its calculations as the governing body operates under different rules to the Premier League.
Meanwhile, Villa completed the last-ditch sale of their women’s team earlier this summer, helping them raise funds before their accounting deadline on 30 June.
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