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Chelesa reduced full year losses but only by a small amount. The club admitted that it faced a struggle to meet its goal of breaking even by 2009-10. Revenues were up 25 per cent from £152.8m to £190.5m. According to chief executive Peter Kenyon that compared with revenues of £212m for Manchester United and £177m for Arsenal. A particular obstacle to achieving the break even target is the club's wage bill which went up 16.7 per cent from £114m to £133m. Admittedly, that was brought down as a percentage of turnover from 76 per cent to 71 per cent, but that is still way above the recommended level. Mr Kenyon said the club remained committed to the target of reducing payroll, but most of it goes to star players who are essential to success on the pitch. Chelsea is now debt free, having paid back the last of its external bonds. However, it still losing large sums of money each year with a pre-tax loss of £74.8m, only down 7 per cent from last year's total of £80.2m.
Peter Kenyon said that the club had increased sponsorship revenues and matchday revenues and media revenues, all on the back if success on the pitch. He said that research showed Chelsea had 90m core 'fans' around the world - that is people who say unprompted they support Chelsea - compared with a figure for Manchester United of 135m. The clubs now claims to be the best supported team in Roman Abramovich's native Russia. Net losses on transferring players fell from £85.4m in the previous 12 months to £11.7m in the year to 30 June 2007. Chaurman Bruce Buck said the club was contemplating ways of increasing revenue, including adding capacity to the 42,000 seats at Stamford Bridge, well below the capacities at Arsenal or Manchester United. 'We would be satisfied if we could find a way to add 10,000 or so,' he said. But that will be difficult given the nature of the site. In the past the club has contemplated moving elsewhere.
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