Chelsea release trading results for 2004.

mike65

from Sunday Times

PETER KENYON, chief executive of Chelsea Football Club, will this week join the ranks of Britain’s best-paid bosses with a pay packet worth £3.5m.

The figure, contained in the first accounts to be filed for Chelsea since its takeover by Roman Abramovich, the Russian tycoon, includes Kenyon’s basic salary, compensation for loss of benefits from his previous employer, Manchester United, and a performance-related element.

It comes as Chelsea prepares to report a record pre-tax loss for a Premiership football club of £87.8m for the year to June 2004, compared with a £26.5m loss the previous year. Much of the losses are due to heavy spending on new players by Abramovich. Turnover at the club soared 40% from £108.6m to £152.1m, driven by increased gate receipts and merchandise sales.

Kenyon said the club aimed to ease its dependency on Abramovich and that it wanted to break even at the operating profit level by the 2009-10 season. “The ultimate security for Chelsea is that we run this as a business,” he said. “It has been portrayed as though this is some sort of hobby (for Abramovich). It’s not a hobby.”

He added that the jump in sales “demonstrates that this club is capable of growing its revenue line”.

Chelsea will be helped in its aim by a new eight-year shirt sponsorship deal with Adidas, worth £12m a year.

Kenyon said that he intended to “attack the cost base”, starting with a move to cut the wage bill to 55% of sales from its current 76%.

Turnover 152 mill, losses 82 mill.
What other club could work on that ratio?

Mike.

Chucky the tree

if he gets bored and decides to pack it in, there ****d

therecklessone

With any luck.

eirebhoy

Chucky the tree wrote:

if he gets bored and decides to pack it in, there ****d

Not with the new adidas deal.

The Muppet

eirebhoy wrote:

Not with the new adidas deal.

12 Million a year is peanuts considering their wage bill alone, Kenyon is on 3.5 M .. Abromvich will need to stay healthy, interested, free, and rich or Chekski will be rightly $%*& £$ for sure.

yop

Mother of god, and I thought Liverpool had "debt" issues!!

mike65

Kenyon said that he intended to “attack the cost base”, starting with a move to cut the wage bill to 55% of sales from its current 76%.

I presume this is code for "fire sale this summer"!

Mike.

The Muppet

mike65 wrote:

I presume this is code for "fire sale this summer"!

Mike.

They'll find it hard to get shot of unwanted players on the big wages unless they are out of contract. I can't see many clubs offering terms to match their current deals.

eirebhoy

The Muppet wrote:

12 Million a year is peanuts considering their wage bill alone, Kenyon is on 3.5 M .. Abromvich will need to stay healthy, interested, free, and rich or Chekski will be rightly $%*&£$ for sure.

A lot of the players will get sold and they have sponsorship deals to fall back on so while they will probably drop down a few levels I doubt they'll ever have a Leeds style case.

mike65 wrote:

I presume this is code for "fire sale this summer"!

Mike.

I was wondering this myself. How is he meant to get the wage bill down that much considering the squad has only 23 players. They'd obviously have to sell a few players and then they'd have to promote players from the acadamy or sign players with less wage demands (which probably means worse players).

On the topic of finance, I was going to open a thread about this:

Meanwhile, Real Madrid have revealed that they have €169 million to spend on players this year and reports in Spain suggest that they have captured Brazilian wonderkid Robinho.

The club's sporting director, Emilio Butragueno, stated that although the enormous sum will probably not all go on the playing squad, it was there if needed.

http://skysports.planetfootball.com/list.asp?hlid=252477&CPID=23&CLID=186&lid=&title=Ronaldo+refutes+feud+claims&channel=Spain

Jivin Turkey

Most of their players are relatively young, and good enough, that someone would buy them if they got into financial difficulty, even if they had huge pay demands.

The players would want to leave if they saw the club falling off the pace (as a result of financial troubles) so would probably even take a pay cut (to £50,000 a week :rolleyes:) in order to leave.

Either way, I cant see Abramovich leaving soon.

PHB

I can't see him leaving of his own choice soon, but eventually legality issues will catch up with him, and Putin is not a fan of him, politics will take over and Chelsea will get it in the hole as a result, which I think sucks

Guy:Incognito

he'll be fine as long as he's not stupid enough to go back to russia. they cant touch him as long as he's out of the country. im sure haveing stg£7B is easy the blow of being away from the motherland though.

Seaneh

Stekelly wrote:

he'll be fine as long as he's not stupid enough to go back to russia. they cant touch him as long as he's out of the country. im sure haveing stg£7B is easy the blow of being away from the motherland though.

He lives in a 25 bed room 300 acre mansion siberia...

PHB

Actually, if he gets arrested in Russia, he will lose the majority of his assests, and while still being rich, won't be very very rich.
Also there exists an extradition treaty between the UK and Russia so if it came to it, he would be sent home, and could not hold any assets in the UK.

growler

all this talk of Abramavich losing interest in chelsea all of a sudden is pure wishful thinking on the part of all the Man U and Arse fans who are now facing the prospect of not dominating the premiership. Roman goes to all the home games, and even travels to most away games, not indicative of a passing interest in football is it? Anyway he does seem to be on good terms with Putin and as he doesn't get involved in politics unlike some Russian billionaires, he should be free to live a happy life enjoying watching his
team win things :-)

Of course Kenyon will say he wants to make the club financially viable, he cant very well come out and say anything different.

Doubt there will too much selling of key players this summer, if anything there will be a few coming in and a few leaving.