Chelsea FC could yet face an own goal linked to activities during the Roman Abramovich era, according to newly filed company accounts that shed fresh light on the aftermath of the club’s £2.5bn sale in 2022.

Documents submitted to Companies House show that a £150m “holdback” was built into the takeover agreement when the Clearlake Capital–Todd Boehly consortium purchased the club – according to an exclusive report in The Guardian newspaper.

The sum is being retained for five years to cover the cost of any potential penalties arising from investigations into whether Chelsea breached football’s financial rules before the change of ownership.

The clause, included by BlueCo 22 — the vehicle used by the new owners — means part of the purchase price can be used to meet the cost of “any proceeding in relation to events which took place before the acquisition date”. The £150m figure is higher than the £100m buffer previously reported.

While there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by the current ownership group, the provision reflects the possibility that football authorities could still pursue sanctions related to the club’s finances during Abramovich’s tenure.

At the same time, separate disclosures indicate that the £2.4bn proceeds from the 2022 sale of Chelsea — currently frozen in a Barclays bank account — may also be affected by a criminal investigation being conducted by authorities in Jersey.

Fordstam Ltd, the company through which Abramovich owned Chelsea, confirmed in its latest accounts that Jersey’s attorney general is investigating whether certain assets linked to the oligarch, potentially including the sale proceeds, could amount to the proceeds of crime. Abramovich has previously denied any wrongdoing.

The funds have been frozen since sanctions were imposed on Abramovich by the UK and European Union following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian billionaire has argued that the money should be distributed according to his wishes, while the UK government insists it must be directed towards humanitarian relief in Ukraine.

The situation is further complicated by loans Abramovich provided to Chelsea during his ownership. Among them was £1.4bn in interest-free financing from Camberley International Investments Ltd, a Jersey-based company linked to the former owner.

If repayment of that loan were ever sought, it could significantly reduce the net proceeds of the sale — and any such payment would require approval from the Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation.

Abramovich funded Chelsea for nearly two decades through a network of offshore companies, using wealth built from Russia’s oil industry in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Fordstam’s latest filings note that the company does not currently expect the frozen funds to be returned.