Chelsea overtake Manchester City and Manchester United as highest-paying club

Net loss: Roman Abramovich's Chelsea made a loss in the 2014/15 season
Clive Mason/Getty Images
Vaishali Bhardwaj8 January 2016

Chelsea have overtaken Manchester City and Manchester United as the Premier League club that pays out the highest salaries after the champions' financial information for the 2014/15 season was released.

In accounts made available on Companies House on Thursday, Chelsea reported a total wage bill - including players, managers, coaches, staff and directors - of £215.6m, an increase of £25m from the previous season.

In contrast, the salary bill for the club's rivals United and City were £203m and £193.5m respectively, while Arsenal reported a wage bill of £192.2m.

Chelsea, who are owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, revealed in November they had made a net loss of £23.1m for the year ending June 2015, despite the fact the club won the Premier League and Capital One Cup last season.

The figures were in contrast to a year earlier when the west London club recorded an £18.4m profit even though they failed to win a major trophy under Jose Mourinho.

What does January hold for Chelsea?

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Chelsea said they remain confident of being able to continue to comply with Uefa's Financial Fair Play rules, despite the loss during the 2014/15 season, and the full annual figures now show that the club has benefited from the sales of Romelu Lukaku, Andre Schurrle, Ryan Bertrand and Thorgan Hazard.

The figures show that Chelsea recorded a profit of £42m from the sales of these players, along with others, although that number was £23.1m down on the previous year when the club made £65m from offloading footballers; namely David Luiz and Juan Mata.

The Blues also announced that one of the main reasons why they recorded a decrease in turnover last season was due to the team only reaching the last 16 of the Champions League, which resulted in Chelsea receiving a lower amount of broadcasting revenue compared with the season before, when they made it to the semi finals.

Chelsea's key financial figures from the 2014/15 year:

- Decrease in turnover of £5.5m from £319.8m to £314.3m.

- Increase in payroll costs of £25m to £215.6m.

- Profit in player transfers of £42m "principally due to the sale of Romelu Lukaku to Everton, Andre Schurrle to Wolfsburg, Ryan Bertrand to Southampton and Thorgan Hazard to Monchengladbach".

- Increase in average league attendance from 40,979 to 41,546.

- Increase in average number of playing staff, managers and coaches by three from 89 in 2014 to 92 in 2015.

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