Relief for Plymouth as chairman confirms financial income from Chelsea

Plymouth Argyle chairman Simon Hallett has confirmed that two cheques due from Chelsea had cleared before sanctions were placed on their owner Roman Abramovich.

There’s a lot of uncertainty around Chelsea at the moment with Abramovich putting the club up for sale and seeing his assets frozen, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Indeed, we’re waiting to see who is going to buy the Premier League club but, in the meantime, they are not allowed to sign new players, sort contracts for current ones, or sell tickets.

That said, then, their financial capability is very limited indeed and it may have impacted Plymouth, had they not already received two cheques for their FA Cup clash and for an academy player moving from Arygle to the Blues.

Speaking to Plymouth Live, though, Hallett quashed any fears:

“As soon as I heard about the sanctions on Abramovich I checked with David Ray (Argyle’s head of finance) and we have had two cheques come in from Chelsea.

“One for a young player out of the academy and one for the FA Cup game, and they have both cleared.

“The amount of money from the FA Cup was much less than people expect. It was between £350,000-£400,000.

“Stamford Bridge has a 40,000 capacity and people who say it was £30 a ticket divided by two forget that it costs money to stage a game.

“I do actually remember as I was tucking into the fantastic food in the Chelsea boardroom that we were actually paying for it! I did say we should have just brought a bag full of pasties.”

The Verdict

A sigh of relief will surely have been exhaled by Hallett on hearing there’d been no issues with the cheques.

Of course, it pales into insignificance when you consider what is happening to the people of Ukraine, and Hallett would surely agree