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Chelsea have released their financial figures for the 2012/13 season, and they're both encouraging and a bit disappointing. The best news of the day appears to be that the club have managed to comply with UEFA's financial fair play regulations, despite a summer of heavy spending coupled with an early exit from the Champions League.
Largely because of the heavy spending combined with the early Champions League exit, the Blues recorded a loss on the year of a whopping £49.4 million. That seems a big step back after making a profit during the Champions League winning campaign, though the result of either season is probably misleading in terms of the club's overall financial health.
The very, very positive news is that Chelsea managed to increase their turnover, despite the early Champions League exit. The club brought in £255.8 million last season, mostly due to increased commercial revenue. Last season also saw a significantly lower total as far as player sales are concerned, which makes that figure all the more impressive.
I'm not going to get too much into the figure right now, but there are certainly reasons to be positive going forward. This season will see larger amounts of commercial revenue as well as significantly larger domestic television monies, meaning a deep Champions League run could see Chelsea pushing the £300 million barrier. That would be outstanding, especially given the limitations the club is dealing with while playing at Stamford Bridge.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results even if the loss is slightly larger than I was anticipating. I really didn't expect to see our turnover top the Champions League winning season, and was more impressed by that news than I was disappointed in the loss. Given the amount of young talent Chelsea have close to contributing to the first team, things seem to be looking pretty good.
