Chelsea’s difficult logic for why they shouldn’t face sporting sanctions for 74 rule breaches | OneFootball

The news that Chelsea have been charged by the FA for 74 rule breaches between 2009 and 2022 shouldn’t be too shocking to anyone – it’s a story that’s been known about for some time, and the breaches were self reported by the new ownership after they took over.

However the moment the charges were announced was always going to be an important one, and we now have the full details on what could happen and how Chelsea will respond.

Chelsea open their books to allow full scrutiny

The charges are for alleged rule breaches relating to payments made to agents, intermediaries and third party investment groups under the Roman Abramovich ownership.

When Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took over in 2022 they spotted a lot of these irregularities in payments and informed the Premier League and the Football Association. They have “opened their books” to allow the FA to build their case, and are hoping that being so transparent about everything will lead to reduced punishments.

“The club has demonstrated unprecedented transparency during this process, including by giving comprehensive access to the club’s files and historical data,” a club statement said.

Chelsea push back against potential sporting sanctions

Ben Jacobs’ Tweet about Chelsea’s rule breaches.

Ben Jacobs is very well connected at Chelsea, and his thoughts on what the club will do are likely to be as accurate as anyone’s.

He says that Chelsea have hired “one of the big accountancy firms” to look over all 74 breaches and argue against sporting sanctions on the basis that there was no sporting advantage.

We’re not so sure how that will work – what we are accused of doing (and have effectively admitted to doing) is paying off agents to get favourable deals with players and to get around spending limits. Getting better players is inherently a sporting advantage, we’re not sure what the argument against that is.

It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out.