No league title in 9 years.
No FA Cup in 8 years.
No League Cup in 11 years.
No Champions League title in 5 years.

In the last half a decade, Chelsea have gone from regular winners to celebrating picking up major honours which have merely papered over the cracks.

Since their Champions League title in 2021 (those less educated Chelsea fans will now just focus on Arsenal’s lack of European Cup than the state of their club), Chelsea’s only honours have been:

The glorified post-season friendly tournament of the Club World Cup that no-one really cared about.
Winning the Europa Conference which, for a club like Chelsea, should be seen as a failure as it meant they finished outside the top Premier League places in the previous years.

For all the Chelsea fans who celebrated “completing football”, the truth is their club has been on a downward spiral ever since Roman Abramovich was run out of town by the British Government over his friendship with Vladimir Putin.

The lack of success is the least of Chelsea’s worries right now. The financial looming financial crisis they face within the next 12 months could genuinely lead them to cease to exist.

Chelsea’s issues are clear and obvious week in week out. For the 3rd season in a row they are likely to play without a kit sponsor. They basically entered a game of poker with potential sponsors and refusing to reduce what they believe the front of their shirt was valued for fear it could affect future deals.

Potential sponsors simply did not value Chelsea as a top club anymore, and the offers on the table reflected that. Now, moving on 3-years, the front of Chelsea’s shirt is very much seen as a poisoned chalice. No major organisation wants to be associated with the club (at what Chelsea are demanding), and the only offers on the table are likely from very niche organisations with questionable backgrounds.

It is estimated that Chelsea’s refusal to to a deal for their shirt sponsor has cost them close to £150m, and that is money that they can not afford to lose.

In a piece of fantastic financial investigative journalism by The Esk, Chelsea’s impending crisis, and that of its convoluted multi-layered ownership has been laid bare.

Chelsea ownership structure

To simplify things, Chelsea are owned by Blueco 22 Limited – the consortium the bought the club which is made up of Clearlake Capital Group L.P. (Behdad Eghbali and José E. Feliciano), Todd Boehly, Mark Walter, Hansjörg Wyss. RC Strasbourg is also owned by Blueco

Sitting above Blueco is 22 Holdco Limited. This is the parent company where all the debt of Chelsea and Blueco seems to have been absorbed into.

22 Holdco and Chelsea’s impending financial crisis

22 Holdco posted a pre-tax loss of £770m for the year to 30 June 2025. That is up from roughly £445m the year before. In that time, turnover only rose by 2.6% to £536.5m. Operating costs for the period was £1.16bn.

Chelsea themselves lost £262m during the reporting period, and hold around £440m in debt to servicing the likes of their ever increasing amortisation costs.

22 Holdco and Blueco have borrowed nearly £1.4bn combined since buying Chelsea in 2022.

Blueco is sitting on a £794m loan that needs to be either fully repaid or refinanced by 13 July 2027, whilst 22 Holdco have £794m in unpaid loans that is due to be paid in 2033 – with no requirement for early repayments, it is expected that the 22 Holdco loan could exceed £850m by 2033.

Putting the Holdco loans to one side right now, it is the £794m Blueco loan due to mature in 2027 that is most concerning. Taking into account their current financial predicament and on-pitch demise, it is unlikely that any export finance or credit agency would be willing to go near them.

That will leave Blueco needing to go out to the private market to secure loans which will have even bigger interest APR applied to them than they are currently paying (between 3.25% and 8%). That will basically make the Blueco financial hole deeper and deeper.

Interest already swallows up around 29% of the groups revenue. If favourable terms can not be found in the next 12 months, that figure is likely to sky rocket. And then you have the big “what if?”

What if no creditor comes out of the woodwork allowing Blueco to refinance in less than 12 months? Blueco would basically need to find alternative ways to pay that £794m. And those ways are not clear.

Now those less educated Chelsea fans will say “we always find a way around FFP/PSR/SCR”. But this is not a football finance issue. It is simply a finance issue.

Selling the women’s team, hotel, etc may have satisfied (at the time) Premier League and UEFA financial governance, but they were sold internally, to other organisations within the Blueco and 22 Holdco groups. They simply moved money about, but ultimately the underlying debt still existed.

It is like your dad being in £10k debt, so sells his car to you mum for £10k. He has wiped off the debt, but ultimately the family are still £10k worse off.

If Blueco do not find either a new financer or new investor, then they, and as a result Chelsea, could be done. They are no longer “too big to foul”. And having seen the post-Abramovich issues and what has gone on with Blueco, the club are not attractive to new investors.

Chelsea will more likely end up in the same scenario of when Ken Bates bought them for £1 – investors will let the club fail, knowing that the can then pick the club up for a bargain price and rebuild. Even if that rebuild needs to start initially from lower down in the pyramid.

There is already talk that Boehly and Walter’s are open to selling their shares. This is not to inject new cash into the club but more rats jumping a sinking ship. Their asking price reportedly values the club at £5bn, not too dissimilar to the Liverpool figure following their minority share buyout to a Jeff Bezos involved consortium.

In the last year, Clearlake put £450m of fresh equity in the group in an attempt to steady the ship. All this did is dig the hole deeper. And whilst some fans will say “Clearlake are a £90bn equity firm, they can afford it”, you have to remember their first obligation is to their shareholders. Not to Chelsea. And you also need to remember that Clearlake also borrowed money from its own credit fund to purchase Chelsea initially.

Chelsea’s financial crisis is beyond football. It is not just about selling academy products to meet PSR/FFP/SCR rules. It is not about selling assets to themselves and amortisation “loopholes”. Their holding company is in deep financial trouble, and the overall holding company could be in an even bigger mess come 2033.

In the late 00s, many Arsenal fan got frustrated with the landscape of football. Many of us held onto the thread of “what will happen if Roman leaves”, and we are now seeing it.

Chelsea are club with no major success in 5 years, no major sponsor, and are running out of cash fast. This summer could be their final Hail Mary before it all goes Pete Tong. In 12 months, the football landscape in West London could be very different…

My final thought is I notice those Chelsea fans who never stopped texting me since my University days (2003-06) have gone quite over the last 5 years. I hope they are OK…

Keenos

Anything can happen in football.

In 2024/25, Liverpool ran away with the Premier League, winning the league with 4 games to spare. They then spent over £400m in the summer of ’25, saw their form collapse and finish 5th.

Having won the league last season, Arsenal have decided against the widescale overhaul of the squad that Liverpool opted for and have made tweaks. This has left Arsenal fans a little deflated ahead of the season. However, there is still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Arsenal doing back to back for the first time since the 1930s.

Champions despite an injury crisis

Winning the league by 7 points looks like we won it at a canter, but we only clinched the title with 1-game to spare. Man City bottling the title in the run-in.

We could have won it at a canter were it not for injuries to key players.

Kai Havertz missed 26 Premier League games through injury. Ben White was also unavailable for over 20 games. Martin Odegaard was only fit enough to start 16 league games, and Bukayo Saka only started 25. William Saliba and Gabriel both had spells on the sidelines, as did Riccardo Calafiori, Mikel Merino, Noni Madueke and Cristhian Mosquera.

Despite having players missing for a total of 1043 (3rd highest in the league), we won the league.

When you consider that those 2 sides with worse injury issues than us finished 12th and 17th, last years victory is even more incredible! Now imagine what we could have achieved with that squad were it not for the injuries.

Signing Bruno Guimaraes

For me, signing Bruno Guimaraes is the most important thing we could have done this summer.

Last season, Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice both ran out of steam. Rice played 4,459 minutes in all competitions, with Zubimendi playing 4,274. That workload is simply not sustainable and it cost us the Champions League final.

Alongside Rice and Zubimendi, Bruno Guimaraes is in the top 5 central midfielders in the league. Other contenders include Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Bruno Fernandes, Dominik Szoboszlai and Elliot Anderson. It is not too hard to make a case that our trio are better than at least 4 of those mentioned (and excluding outgoing Rodri).

Bruno Guimaraes, alongside the developing Myles Lewis Skelly, mean that we do not need to rush back either Zubimendi or Rice from the World Cup. It also means that the pairs workload will be dramatically reduced this season. The result will be instead of playing on fumes come the end of the season, they will all be fresher.

Last season we played 63 games across all competitions. That is 11,340 minutes for 2 midfielders (based on 90 minutes). I would expect Rice, Zubimendi and Bruno to be around the 3,000 to 3,500 minute mark, and MLS to play around 2,000-2,500.

If we make the Champions League final come May ’27, our key midfielders could have the equivalent of 16 less games in their legs. That is absolutely huge!

Rivals losing players

This summer, Arsenal have not lost a single key player.

The only departing player to play any significant minutes last year is Leandro Trossard. And he has been replaced by Christos Tzolis (more on him later). Karl Hein, Jakub Kiwor and Christian Norgaard have also departed. None will be missed.

The last few weeks of the window will also likely see Gabriel Jesus and Ethan Nwaneri depart. Neither did much of note last season so their exit would not weaken us.

Gabriel Martinelli could also be out of the door. But he will only exit on our terms, and if a replacement can be recruited. It will be said to see the Brazilian depart – we have seen him arrive as a boy and turn into a man – but he has had a couple of rough seasons.

Meanwhile, all our title rivals have lost key players, and 3 of them have changed manager:

Manchester City: Pep Guardiola, Rodri (pending), Bernardo Silva, John Stones, Nathan Ake
Manchester United: Casemiro
Aston Villa: Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Lucas Digne
Liverpool: Arnie Slot, Mo Salah, Ibrahima Konate, Andrew Robertson
Chelsea: Marc Cucurella, Trevoh Chalobah

Many of those who departed were amongst their sides most experienced players. They were their leaders. You can not easily replace the experience and leadership the likes of Rodri, Silva, Stones, Casemiro, Tielemans and Robertson brought on and off the pitch.

And whilst others have lost some of their main lieutenants, in Bruno we have signed a leader. And that will have another huge impact.

Christos Tzolis

One big criticism of Andrea Berta this summer has been our inability to recruit a “big name” left winger.

We pivoted away from Morgan Rogers to chase Vinicius Jr, losing out on both, whilst also declared ourselves out of the race for Bradley Barcola early on. I get the frustration.

In recent weeks, social media scouts have cried that we should “be focusing on the next big name, not trying to sign a big name”. They then point out the ages and experience of the likes of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Bradley Barcola and Desire Doue when PSG signed them, or Vinicus Jr and Michael Olise when they went to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively. This is all justifiable points, but then it is laughable that they do not put Tzolis into this category.

I see a lot of fans saying we should sign Mika Godts and that PSG are “showing us how to do it” in the transfer market. But Godts is a similar profile, with similar experience, as Tzolis. the Greek man is only 24 remember. The same age as Kvaratskhelia when he went to PSG and Olise when he went to Bayern.

It has only been pre-season, but Tzolis looks like a superstar in the making. He will be a game changers for us this season, I am sure of it.

Experience, experience, experience

Last season, pundits predicted we would bottle the title because we did not have the experience of how to get over the line.

Despite suffering an injury crisis, and having key players running out of steam, we won our last 5 games in a row to clinch the title.

Declan Rice with his “it’s not done” galvanised the team and reminded them what was still possible. The players will only become mentally stronger for that, knowing what needs to be done to win the league.

From David Raya to Gabriel and Saliba, Zubimendi, Rice and Havertz. We have a spin of players that are now Premier League champions and will be able to lead us through those tough games. And whilst we have kept the experience, other teams are losing it. What we did last season would only have made us better.

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Will win win the league? It is impossible to answer that. But I believe we are stronger this season then we are last. And that is all you can do.

Keenos

Well that results has put a few people on their places…

I have not really understood the negativity around Arsenal this summer. We have spent close to £150m, signed a fantastic new left winger and one of the best midfielders in the league. We have also kept hold of key players.

Last season we won the league. And we would have won it comfortable were it not for key players getting injured – remember, we had the second most injuries of any Premier League club.

Despite being Champions, and strengthening, many fans and pundits were writing us off. All because we missed out on Vinicius Jr.

Meanwhile, every one of our title rivals has lost key players. From Rodri to Cucerella, Mo Salah to Bernardo Silva, our opponents have lost leaders. We have not.

The most laughable criticism has been that aimed at Andrea Berta.

On social media, a small minority have fans have begun getting very noisy about our Director of Football and calling for him to be sacked. These same people have probably spent the last 4 years shouting “Arteta Out”.

The only conclusion I come to is these people are unhappy, and will always look for someone to abuse at Arsenal. We win the league, they can no longer criticise Arteta so go onto Berta. We win again next season, they will probably move onto the Kroenke’s, the medical department or Gunnersaurus. They will always find someone to try and reflect their own misery onto.

So we won 3-nil, against Man City’s strongest XI, the likes of Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi being on the bench, and William Saliba, Jurrien Timber and Gabriel Martinelli not being in the Squad.

Myles Lewis Skelly showed that he is ready to play more in midfield. Martin Odegaard looked sharp. And Christos Tzolis looks like he could become the signing of the season.

On the Greek-man, it is interesting.

Having missed out on Vinicius Jr, a lot of online wannabe scouts have moaned that we would not be buying the best left wingers available. We should be targeting the next Vinicius Jr, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Bradley Barcola. Is that not what we have done with Tzolis?

At just 24, he looks ready to explode into superstardom. A mixture of Leandro Trossard and Santi Cazorla with some Alexis Sanchez thrown in. He has looked scintillating in preseason and the only way is up. Why a find.

So we lift the shield. I am very much in the “glorified friendly” camp. Same with the European Super Cup and Word Club Cup. But teams and fans are increasingly putting value on these.

Were the Community Shield named the “English Super Cup”, I wonder if it would be viewed differently. We now have 18 of them, and Arteta has won his 3rd.

For Super Mik, that is now 1 Premier League, 1 FA Cup and 3 Community Shields. More will come and I am here for it.

UTA

Keenos