Chelsea fined £10m, down from £26m, after Abramovich era agent payment breaches | OneFootball

Chelsea have been fined £10m and given a suspended two-window ban on registering new players after admitting rule breaches over agent payments between 2009 and 2022.

According to Hounslow Herald, a separate six-point deduction, suspended until June 2027, was set aside following the club's appeal.

The breaches were self-reported by owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital after they took over in 2022. Chelsea admitted £47m in undisclosed payments to unregistered agents and third parties between 2011 and 2018. All offences date to the Roman Abramovich era, and the FA is continuing to examine potential individual misconduct.

The FA's regulatory commission initially set the fine at £26m, then cut it by a third to £17.25m to reflect self-reporting and a level of cooperation it deemed exceptional and unprecedented. A further third was removed for an early guilty plea, reducing it to £11.4m, before a final adjustment to £10m to account for penalties already imposed by Uefa and the Premier League over related matters.

The commission considered the breaches unlikely to have surfaced without the club's disclosure and noted the points deduction was initially suspended because neither the FA nor the Premier League sought one. The money will be reinvested into grassroots football, and the sanction is intended to punish and deter.

Chelsea said the conclusion of the FA process brings all regulatory proceedings against the club to a close, and they thanked Uefa, the Premier League and the FA for their engagement. In March, the club received a nine-month academy transfer ban and a £750,000 fine over academy registrations between 2019 and 2022.

Source: Hounslow Herald