Chelsea\u2019s decision to set aside a substantial “holdback amount” as part of the BlueCo takeover has prompted fresh scrutiny after recent accounts disclosed worrying details. BlueCo reported themselves to English football\u2019s governing body when their \u00a32.5 billion acquisition completed in May 2022, and a proportion of the purchase price was earmarked to cover potential punishments relating to actions under Abramovich.<\/p>\n
Fordstam Limited, the company that handled the sale forced by U.K. sanctions against Abramovich because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin, confirmed this week that the holdback was valued at \u00a3150 million and would be available until 2027. That figure exceeded earlier expectations that any fine would be no more than \u00a3100 million.<\/p>\n
More significant for observers was Fordstam\u2019s decision in its accounts to write off ever banking the \u00a3150 million because of “doubts about its recoverability.” The move has been read by some in the game as an indication that the provision is intended to cover more than a straightforward fine.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s a question mark there as to why the size of the provision is so big,” football finance expert and lawyer Stefan Borson told The Guardian. He added: “The holdback amount will not just indemnify any financial penalty from a fine. It may also cover claims for consequential losses from any sporting sanctions, such as a loss of a European place or [Premier League ] merit payments.” <\/p>\n
Taken together, the size of the holdback and its apparent write-off have led financial commentators to suggest Chelsea may face sporting consequences in addition to monetary penalties from the Football Association. The club\u2019s accounts and Fordstam\u2019s statement leave open how much of the \u00a3150 million was intended for fines alone and how much was a hedge against the loss of competition revenue or league merit payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fordstam wrote off a \u00a3150m holdback, suggesting Chelsea may face both fines and sporting penalties..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1038,1215],"class_list":["post-4276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-accounts-2024-25","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}