Chelsea fined £10.75M, given suspended transfer ban for breaking EPL rules

Chelsea has been handed fines totaling 10.75 million pounds ($14.3 million) as well as a suspended one-year ban from signing players for breaking financial rules during its previous ownership under Roman Abramovich, the Premier League said Monday.

Sanction agreements were reached after Chelsea self-reported potential breaches to the Football Association that came to light in 2022 when American investors Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital led a consortium to buy out Abramovich for 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion).

The rules related to “financial reporting, third party investment and youth development,” the Premier League said.

“It was established that between 2011 and 2018, undisclosed payments by third parties associated with the club were made to players, unregistered agents and other third parties,” the league said in a statement.

“These payments were not disclosed to the football regulatory authorities at the time, including the Premier League.”

According to the sanction agreement, the payments to unregistered agents totaled more than 23 million pounds ($30 million) and were in relation to the signings of players including Eden Hazard, David Luiz, Ramires, Andre Schurrle and Nemanja Matic.

The undisclosed payments “were made for the benefit of Chelsea,” the statement said, “and should have been treated as having been made by the club.”

They “constituted a breach of the requirement to act in good faith towards the league,” the competition said.

Chelsea accepted the fine, which was ratified by an independent commission, and was given an immediate nine-month academy transfer ban and a suspended one-year transfer ban for first-team players.

No points deduction was applied, however.

The club said it was “pleased” to reach a settlement with the Premier League.

“From the outset of this process,” Chelsea said in its own statement, “the club has treated these matters with the utmost seriousness, providing full cooperation to all relevant regulators.”

The league noted Chelsea's “proactive self-reporting, admissions of breach and exceptional cooperation throughout the investigation acted as significant mitigating factors" and helped reduce the fine by around 50%.

It also said it was satisfied that Chelsea “in no scenario” would have breached the league's profitability and sustainability rules in those periods if the payments made had been properly included in the club’s accounts.

There have been other financial sanctions against Chelsea

Chelsea's new owners have been fined on multiple occasions by UEFA for financial breaches.

In 2023, during the first year of new regime, Chelsea paid UEFA a 10 million euros (then $11.8 million) fine to settle irregularities committed while the club was owned by Abramovich, who was forced to sell the club after Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. That was also self-reported by the club.

Last year, Chelsea was fined 20 million euros (then $23.6 million) for failing to approach break-even and a further 11 million euros ($13 million) for spending more than an 80% set limit of its revenue on so-called “squad cost” such as transfers and wages.

A separate disciplinary process conducted by the Football Association is ongoing and relates to the same breaches for which Chelsea has been punished by the Premier League.

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