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Title costs Chelsea $2.4b
CHELSEA's first title in 50 years has cost the English Premier League club more than ￡1 billion ($2.4b) in players' wages and transfer fees. And, accoring to a report by consultants Deloitte and Touche, Roman Abramovich's takeover of the club has cost the Russian tycoon ￡300m in two years. England's Premier League strengthened its position in 2003-04 as Europe's richest, the Deloitte report says. Revenue from Europe's top five leagues – in England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France – rose two per cent to 5.8 billion euro ($9.32 billion). The Premier League's income grew six per cent to nearly 2b euro, more than 800m euro more than Italy's Serie A, Europe's No.2 league. Revenue was 1.1b euro in Germany, 950m euro in Spain and 660m euro in France. Of the big five leagues, only clubs in the English Premier League and Germany's Bundesliga made profits – Serie A made losses of 341m euro in 2003-04. The Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance highlights the effect of new champion Chelsea on England's elite clubs since Abramovich started re-building the club in July 2003. "In relation to player transfer costs, the substantial fall in 2002-03 was reversed with gross spending of over ￡400m ($956.71m) – largely driven by Chelsea," the report said.
"Chelsea's spending on player wages and transfers contributed to total expenditure on players of over ￡1b for the first season ever," the survey reports. "However, excluding Chelsea, we estimate that players' wages actually fell in the Premiership – again a Premiership first." Overall Premier League wages rose seven per cent in 2003-04 to ￡811m, well below the compound annual growth rate of 23 per cent of the previous decade. After stripping out Chelsea's wages, the total fell one per cent to ￡96m. "Big transfer fees and wages will continue to be paid for star players, but for the majority of players the new sense of 'realism' will continue to limit transfer fees and we hope that more performance-dependent wages will continue to be introduced for all players," the report said. The turnover/wages ratio in the Premier League remained at 61 per cent. Manchester United and Bolton Wanderers are the only two clubs where the ratio is below 50 per cent. Despite the depth of Abramovich's pockets, Manchester United remains the richest club on paper with revenues of ￡172m in 2003-04, although Chelsea narrowed the gap as its income hit ￡144m. Liverpool will net ￡30m from its Champions League triumph, Deloitte said.
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