Clubs question Chelsea sanction as Premier League faces litigation fatigue | OneFootball

The Premier League is grappling with litigation fatigue, and Chelsea’s punishment for long-running concealed payments, a suspended one-year senior transfer ban and a £10million fine, has left rivals uneasy, even slipping off a recent shareholders’ agenda.

According to The Athletic, more than a dozen executives and sports lawyers, speaking anonymously, questioned how much credit Chelsea received for self-reporting by new owners BlueCo, who unearthed issues during 2022 due diligence, and they are closely watching implications for Manchester City’s 115 charges, which City deny.

Chelsea admitted 36 undisclosed payments totalling £47.5million between 2011 and 2018, including £23million to seven unregistered agents linked to players, and about £19million tied to the signings of Samuel Eto’o and Willian, with no suggestion of wrongdoing by the players.

An independent panel approved a £10million fine and a one-year transfer ban, then halved the fine and suspended the ban for two years for exceptional co-operation. Chelsea must also pay the league’s legal costs and an unpaid transfer levy of £771,000, and the commission described the penalty as a record sum for rule breaches.

In a separate case over the tapping up of youth players, Chelsea were fined £750,000 and barred from registering academy players for nine months, while UEFA had already fined £8.6million in 2023. The FA’s 74-charge case remains unresolved.

The panel found the undeclared sums would not have pushed Chelsea over PSR limits if recorded correctly, a reading some lawyers say could narrow future points deductions to PSR-only breaches. League insiders resist that interpretation, yet several executives view the outcome as notably lenient.

Others argue a counterfactual sporting analysis, including knock-on transfer profits, should have been applied, and question the lack of inflation uplifts on historic sums. Few expect clubs to mount a challenge given cost and appetite for more legal battles.

Source: NY Times