The chants on the Underground District Line approaching Chelsea’s Fulham Broadway stop two weeks ago told you that Arsenal not winning the title would be savoured almost as much locally as the west London team sneaking into next season’s Champions League: ‘We’re gonna have a party when Arsenal f*** it up.’
Chelsea promptly drew 1-1 at home with Burnley and after their 2-1 loss at the Emirates on Sunday left them 19 points adrift of Arsenal, a study by respected football finance analyst Swiss Ramble revealed how the two clubs occupy different planets when it comes to fundamental business competency.
Monday’s study, based on the 2024-25 financial results Arsenal published last week, relates how the club’s record revenues saw them effectively break even last year, with a mere £1million loss. That return, unusual in the division, coincided with UEFA’s Club Finance and Investment Landscape report showing that Chelsea had made an English record £355m loss in 2024-25 – the biggest deficit ever recorded by an English football team.
There are plenty looking to pick holes in Arsenal – from those questioning their psychological faculty to those challenging the number of goals they are scoring from open play. Chris Sutton has even called them ‘Set‑piece Arsenal’.
But in an era of troublingly opaque football spending – in which Chelsea can sell their own women’s football team to ‘themselves’ and claim the transaction puts them in profit, while the verdict on Manchester City’s 115 charges of financial impropriety is still unknown – the Swiss Ramble report shows how the notion of a club pushing for the title while barely being in the red is actually still possible.
It also poses the question of whether, rather than mocking or belittling Arsenal, we should be celebrating a team pushing for the title who have not felt the need to stretch financial limits to breaking point or indulge in fiscal chicanery in the process of doing so.
Arsenal are challenging on four fronts this season all while effectively breaking even last year
Jurrien Timber scores Arsenal’s winner against Chelsea – many observers have criticised the club’s reliance on set-piece goals
The report includes observations on Arsenal’s growth across the past three years – a period in which they have almost doubled both commercial revenues and overall revenues.
The commercial side of their business has been overhauled – with the renewal and extension of the Emirates deal, a first full year of income from the Sobha Realty Training Centre naming rights deal and improved value from numerous secondary sponsorship deals. A shift in focus from China to the US has yielded a huge dividend.
Two years ago, Arsenal trailed Tottenham by two places in the Deloitte Money League and by £60m on commercial income levels. The most eye-catching number in last week’s financials was their £263m commercial income in 2024-25 – a 21 per cent year-on-year rise – bringing them within a mere £14m of Spurs. Only Tottenham’s bigger stadium and its use for gigs and NFL are now keeping that club ahead.
For overall annual revenue, Arsenal have now overtaken Manchester United, Spurs and Chelsea, and caught up with Manchester City.
Chelsea are barely even relevant to this conversation, lagging way behind Arsenal – £62m behind – in terms of commercial revenue. They required the £199m profit figure they registered from the sale of their women’s team to another company in their group to record a £128m profit in 2023-24. The figure ‘is highly misleading,’ Swiss Ramble observes. ’If that transaction was excluded, Chelsea would have made a £71m loss.’
Arsenal’s financial intelligence speaks for itself – just as it did when a league table charting Premier League clubs’ £5billion losses across the 34-year span of the competition found them to have been the second most financially sustainable, last month. Arsene Wenger accepted the loss of money from his transfer pot to invest in a new stadium, 20 years ago, and suffered as a result, but seems a visionary now.
‘They have been super-smart,’ said Liverpool University football finance expert Kieran Maguire, when revealing the Premier League pre-tax losses table. ‘They’ve always been viewed as the Bank of England club and conservative, but that has not been to their detriment. They were ahead of the curve in terms of moving to a new, expanded stadium. Others followed them in that respect.’
Swiss Ramble notes how the once state-of-the-art Emirates has been overtaken, yet could be key to the kind of further revenue growth which can be ploughed into player wages – the best indication of where a side will finish.
‘Given the slowdown in TV rights, it would make sense for Arsenal to explore opportunities to make better use of the stadium,’ the Swiss Ramble report states
Taking the Emirates’ capacity to 70,000 would bring architectural challenges and staging non-football events, as Tottenham do, would entail Islington Council increasing the permissible quota from the current six, compared with the 30 Spurs are allowed. ‘Given the slowdown in TV rights, it would make sense for Arsenal to explore opportunities to make better use of the stadium,’ the report states.
The report also includes analysis of how Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke’s decision to begin investing in the club from 2019 puts him among the Premier League club owners to have paid in the most over the past five years, though in the form of loans rather than capital which does not need to be repaid. A significant difference.
That Saturday afternoon at Stamford Bridge a few weeks ago threw into question the current popular notion that Liam Rosenior could be ‘the next Arteta’. His barbed post-match criticism of a player who failed to carry out an on-pitch marking ‘assignment’ against Burnley was not attractive. At one break in play, Rosenior was too busy writing notes on a pad to speak to captain Reece James, who had arrived at the technical area.
Wenger would certainly see a rich moral vindication about Arsenal, a side who have played the financial rules straight and true, taking the title. ‘Chelsea have enhancement of performances through financial resources which are unlimited,’ he once said. ‘It’s a kind of doping.’ He felt just the same about City.
His old club have a far more convincing manager than Chelsea, as well as a vastly better-run business. For the ultimate proof that you can triumph and prevail without working the system, they need that manager to bring the title home.
