(Bloomberg) -- Top hotels, private jets and meticulous catering are just part of the package for a footballer playing in Europe’s richest league. The sanctions imposed on Chelsea’s Russian owner have left one of the world’s most successful clubs with rather more basic things to figure out.

“As long as we have enough shirts and a bus to drive to the games, we’ll be there and will compete hard,” head coach Thomas Tuchel said on Thursday evening after his team had just beaten English Premier League struggler Norwich City on a day of turmoil off the pitch.

After Chelsea was seized by the U.K. as part of its action against Roman Abramovich, what happens next is still being decided. The club is in talks with the government about ensuring it can continue to fulfil games, starting with its home tie against Newcastle United on Sunday. Another question is whether the club can avoid going into administration.

What’s already been laid bare is that Chelsea is unviable in its current form without the largesse of its billionaire patron, a reflection of a sport whose parlous finances would sink just about any other industry. In short, it doesn’t matter how much something costs if you haven’t got the money.

The latest accounts show it costs the club about 500 million pounds ($654 million) a season to run, including everything from running matchday hospitality to paying the eye-watering salaries of its players. The London club is now limited to a budget of 500,000 pounds to host a game and 20,000 pounds to play away from home.

Under the license from the U.K. government, Chelsea has to limit fan attendance at its Stamford Bridge stadium and stop selling merchandise. That means it would lose about 600,000 pounds of income every game based on tickets that now will remain unsold, according to Richard Moffat, an analyst at betting tipster OLBG.

The club can’t cover the cost of what it takes to host a match, a person familiar with the situation at Chelsea said. The club has about 8,000 corporate season-ticket holders, many of whom enjoy hot meals and fine wines. The 500,000 pounds mandated by the government needs to cover stewards, first aid, and so-called club ambassadors who are usually past players who come back to entertain guests.

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Such risks to a club should a rich benefactor leave were highlighted in a recent review of the sport by a former sports minister, said Kieran Maguire, lecturer in football finance at the University of Liverpool.

The conclusion was “that too many football clubs are owned by one owner where they are only one decision away from a catastrophe if the ownership can no longer subsidize the club,” he said. The crisis at Chelsea has strengthened the argument for an independent football regulator, he said.

Chelsea said on Thursday it was in talks with the government, pushing to have the conditions amended. The immediate aim is work out how to carry on operating until the end of the season, the person familiar with the situation said. They declined to be identified because the matters are confidential. The sum of 20,000 pounds to travel to an away game would be too small for some matches, especially those abroad in the Champions League, the person said.

The U.K. government is open to discussing amendments to the license, but there are unlikely to be major changes, according to a person familiar with the matter, also speaking on condition of anonymity. The government is trying to strike a balance between preventing Abramovich from further benefiting from the asset while not penalizing fans and players, the person said. Conversations with the club are ongoing.

A quick sale is looking necessary to avoid total meltdown for the team. Abramovich put Chelsea up for sale before he was sanctioned and promised to donate the proceeds to help Ukrainian victims of Russian’s invasion.

Yet on Thursday night, New York-based Raine, the bank advising on the sale, emailed all bidders that had registered an interest to advise them that they were pausing the process for 24 to 48 hours, according to a person familiar with the situation who declined to be named. The government now has to approve a sale before it can go ahead.

Chelsea attracted interest from the likes of Todd Boehly, the former Guggenheim Partners president, Josh Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management Inc., and property developer Nick Candy. For one, Candy is still keen. “We are examining the details of yesterday’s announcement and we are still interested in making a bid,” a spokesperson for Candy said.

Read More: Meet Some of the Potential Players in Race to Buy Chelsea

Another option is putting the club into administration, an English process whereby an external accounting firm typically runs the club. Company directors are personally liable if they are aware the business is in a desperate financial situation and don’t place it into administration. That would allow Chelsea, which sits third in the league, to keep running. 

“At the moment the suggestion is the club has a wage bill of 28 million pounds a month and has sufficient cash in the bank to fulfil the next two Premier League fixtures,” said Julie Palmer, regional managing partner at Begbies Traynor, who dealt with football club AFC Bournemouth’s administration in 2008.  “The question then is what happens with the liabilities beyond that point and whether it pushes the club towards some form of administration.”

Meanwhile, sponsors remain in doubt. The sanctions prompted shirt sponsor Three to suspend its contract, which runs until 2022. Other big backers include Nike Inc. and Trivago, the online hotel search website. A spokesperson for Trivago said on Friday it was sticking with the club in the hope a buyer would be found soon.  

But that calls into question the longer term if a buyer doesn’t emerge quickly. By far the biggest burden on football clubs is the wages bill for players. Chelsea is prevented from buying and selling players, and agreeing to contracts.

Last year, the team’s cost of sales, which include player wages, amounted to 355 million pounds, filings show. Romelu Lukaku, who joined in the summer from Inter Milan, is said to be the highest earner on 325,000 pounds a week. Even more peripheral players like Timo Werner is reported to earn 270,000 pounds a week. Chelsea’s accounts show it had 16.3 million pounds of cash as of June 2021.

For now, it’s the short term the club has to confront. After hosting Newcastle, the next two games are away trips for cup games at French side Lille and up to Middlesbrough in northeast England. The travel to France was already booked, the person familiar with the club said. How they get to future games away from London remains in doubt.

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