Euro champs Chelsea back in the black

Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea moved into profit last year thanks to the proceeds of a share deal as well as their exploits in winning the Champions League, the Premier League club’s annual accounts showed.

The west London club said in November that they had made a profit of £1.4 million in the year to end-June 2012, the first time they had been in the black since Russian oligarch Abramovich bought the club in 2003.

However, the figures were flattered by an £18.4m profit relating to the cancellation of non-equity preference shares previously owned by pay TV company BSkyB. The earnings were also lifted by £28.8m gained on the sale of players, including Yuri Zhirkov to Anzhi Makhachkala, Nicolas Anelka to Shanghai Shenhua and Alex to PSG.