Premier League football clubs have claimed millions from a tax scheme set up to fund science and technology breakthroughs for the public good. Chelsea were paid more than £2m in research and development tax relief payments by HMRC between 2020 and 2023, accounts reveal. Nottingham Forest claimed a tax credit of £607,000 according to its last set of accounts. While Fulham FC claimed £86,000 in credits between 2019 and 2021. Under the rules a company can only apply for a handout if it has made genuine advances in science or tech to benefit all, not just itself. None of the clubs had responded to requests for comment last night. An audit of sports teams’ accounts found 28 top-flight clubs across football, rugby and cricket have made claims totalling £13m over the past five years. They could either pocket the cash or use an award to offset taxes. HMRC has faced repeated criticism for its handling of the scheme the cost of which has ballooned from £1.1bn in 2010 to £7.5bn in 2023. Officials have been accused of failing to properly check claims leading to a high rate of fraud and error with resulting losses totalling £4.1bn since 2020. There is no suggestion any of the teams mentioned are involved in wrongdoing. According to its accounts Chelsea successfully made one income claim for £1.14m in 2021 and another for £1.05m, plus tax credits worth a further £215,000, two years later. The club is owned by US businessman Todd Boehly (corr) who took it over from sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in 2022. Chelsea spent £326m on player wages in the same year as the most recent tax claim. Where companies receive payments directly from HMRC it is possible to estimate how much they claim to have invested in research and development to justify the handout. Analysis by Paul Rosser, of R&D Consulting Limited, suggests that to have earned the sum Chelsea received the club would have to have spent £16.1 million on science and tech. Scottish Premier League club Dundee United claimed £1.28m in 2021-22 under the scheme. This was equivalent to 15% of the club’s turnover that year though claims can be made for previous research activity. United had not responded to a request for comment. It made the claim with help of a firm which described itself on its website as having the 'know-how' to navigate research and development tax credits. On since-removed website pages it said it could help clubs in making claims under the scheme for research into "stadiums-spectator interaction", "media and multi-media" and "Covid compliance measures". The company was criticised in a recent Scottish court case for what the sheriff found was a proposal to make a research and development claim on behalf of a fruit and veg company for installing a fridge. The judge said the firm was "faintly comical in their implausible attempts to present the simple purchase of a fridge" as a "triumph in research and development shifting baseline technology" to achieve "technological advances". Another research and development consultancy posted online in December that it had "signed and delivered work for a top 4 Premier League football club". HMRC said it could not comment on individual cases. "R&D claims from all sectors are checked and where risks are identified we use a range of compliance approaches and powers to address them," a spokesman said. A spokesman for Nottingham Forest declined to comment last night (mon).