Chelsea ‘face European ban’ by ‘breaching settlement’ on one condition – ‘very significant issue’ | OneFootball

A football finance expert has warned Chelsea that they ‘face a European ban’ if they miss out on Champions League qualification this season.

Chelsea are enduring a really difficult 2025/26 campaign, with their second permanent boss of the season, Liam Rosenior, under serious pressure following a string of poor results/performances.

The Blues are still in the FA Cup after failing in other cup competitions, but they look unlikely to qualify for the Champions League.

Sixth spot will secure Champions League if Aston Villa win the Europa League and finishes fifth, and Chelsea likely needs this to happen to earn a spot in the competition. They currently trail Liverpool by seven points with five games remaining. 

Chelsea are also only six points clear of 14th-placed Newcastle United, so they could end up out of Europe completely and have settlements with UEFA and the Premier League over breaching financial rules.

Former Man City financial advisor Stefan Borson has broken down why he thinks Chelsea will have a “very significant issue” without Champions League football.

“The Champions League thing is obviously a very significant issue for a club with their [Chelsea’s] cost base and with their losses,” Borson told talkSPORT.

“And they are telling everyone who is asking that they’re operationally profitable right now.

“It seems to me that you have to strip out all of the player amortisation, which is about £216million this year, so sure, if you strip out one of the biggest lines in your profit and loss, then maybe, you’re operationally profitable.

“But even then, it’s a challenge going forward as they won’t have the Club World Cup money, and if they drop out of the Champions League, obviously they’ll also drop £80m of UEFA prize money…

“It might be mitigated by a Europa League final, that could give them £40m. Can they still sell Stamford Bridge out in the Europa? Probably pretty close, so they will do £100m matchday if they’re in Europe.”

And Borson can see Chelsea opting to “breach the settlement agreement” with UEFA and accepting a one-year ban from UEFA if they fall into the Conference League.

“The big issue they’re going to have is if they fall into the Conference League,” Borson added.

“They’ve got a very, very challenging situation with the settlement they agreed with UEFA, if they’re not in the Champions League.

“That is a settlement agreement, which I’ll just speculate now… I think there’s a chance that if they fall into the Conference League, or even Europa League, that they take the decision to breach the settlement agreement and to take a ban like Juventus did in 2023.

“So they’d admit the breach by more than €20m, they pay the fine, the settlement agreement is ripped up, they drop out of Europe for a year, because who wants Conference League anyway, and they reset the settlement agreement going forward.

“Because to me, the settlement agreement that’s currently drafted looks extremely challenging for the next season, particularly if they’re not in the Champions League, but even if they are, it’s the season after.

“When you keep kicking the can down the road as Chelsea have done, and you find that the rules are changing to exclude the loophole busters that they have – the hotels, the carparks, the women’s team – once you run out of those things, you’ve got to sell players and you’ve got to sell players for profit.

“That’s going to be a big challenge for them, aside from the players they don’t want to sell. Of course they can sell Palmer for a profit…but they don’t want to do that, what they want to do is sell players they’re happy to sell, but there’s no profit in them.”