Chelsea £115m cash injection confirmed as Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital make key move

Chelsea owners BlueCo22 Limited have pumped in another £115 million into the football club via a new allotment of shares.

BlueCo22, the company through which the Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital-led consortium acquired the club back in May 2022, allotted a further 1,000 shares at a value of £115,000 per share, as per documents filed with Companies House and made publicly available on Wednesday.

Businesses allot new shares for a variety of reasons, primarily to raise capital that helps them fund new infrastructure projects, service debt or ensure they meet working capital requirements.

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In the case of football clubs, that means things like the wage bill or transfer debt.

The reason for the move by BlueCo22 in Chelsea’s case will likely be driven by a desire to improve the cash flow ahead of some payments due for transfer activity.

While the value of transfer fees are amortised for accounting purposes over the length of a deal signed, how the actual funds pass between the clubs varies, often done on an instalment basis.

BlueCo22 could also be making a pre-emptive move ahead of the end of the financial year for 2024/25, which for ends on June 30 annually, in order to strengthen some elements of the balance sheet.

On Monday, , where an underlying loss of £70million was swung into a pre-tax profit of £128.4m, with a large part of that attributable to the sale of the Chelsea Women’s team after it was spun out of the men’s team and sold to a company within the BlueCo22.

This createdpaper profits for the club to ensure they remained compliant with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations (PSR) for the 2023/24 period, something that had been in some doubt following a period of heavy losses, heavy spending and a lack of competitive success on the pitch with no UEFA Champions League football since the 2022/23 season.

In the face of a decline in turnover year on year, down to £468.5m from the previous year’s £512.5m, the Blues managed to swing from a £90.1m pre-tax loss in 2022/23 to a hefty profit for 2024, an increase of some £218.5m.

While a large chunk of that will be down to the Chelsea Women’s sale, it was also aided in no small part by the profit on the disposal of player registrations, an area in which Chelsea have been best in class among Premier League clubs for some time.

The Premier League, according to a report in The Times on Thursday, have yet to agree on the valuation placed upon Chelsea Women, while UEFA will assess the finances themselves at the end of the season.

That might be more problematic for Chelsea should they qualify for European competition next season given that UEFA rules are more stringent when it comes to certain aspects, including associated party transactions being discounted from the figures.

Failing to adhere to UEFA regulations would likely bring with it a fine as opposed to any competitive sanctions.