Chelsea given record £10.75m fine and suspended transfer ban over secret payments

Chelsea have been given a suspended one-year transfer ban, and fined a record £10.75m, after admitting historical breaches of Premier League rules.

The Premier League said the transfer ban for Chelsea's first team had been suspended for two years. The west London club have also been given a nine-month academy transfer ban.

All sanctions will "take effect immediately", with the club also paying the full costs of the investigation and disciplinary process, the league said.

However, sixth-placed Chelsea have avoided a points deduction.

The fine is the highest imposed by the Premier League, beating the previous record of £5.5m given to West Ham United in 2007 over the signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

A league investigation found that, between 2011 and 2018, more than £47.5m of undisclosed payments by third parties associated with Chelsea were made to players, unregistered agents and other third parties.

Payments were made from entities which the league said were "controlled by or associated with" the club's then owner Roman Abramovich to unlicensed agents and individuals connected to selling clubs which helped to facilitate transfers for players, including Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto'o and Willian.

The league was satisfied that no current Chelsea employee was involved in, or knew about, the payments. There was also no suggestion of any wrongdoing regarding the players involved in the transfers.

It was accepted that had the new US owners not proactively reported their concerns upon completing their takeover of Chelsea in 2022, the breaches would potentially never have been discovered.

That, combined with Chelsea's "exceptional" cooperation, and the fact the payments would not have put the club in breach of profitability and sustainability rules if they had been properly accounted for at the time, meant a points penalty was not deemed appropriate.

In a statement, the league said: "The payments were made for the benefit of Chelsea FC, and should have been treated as having been made by the club.

"The club has also accepted, among other things, that the making of these payments, as well as the failure to disclose them to the league, constituted a breach of the requirement to act in good faith towards the league."

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Chelsea, who shared more than 200,000 documents with the Premier League, said they were "pleased that the matter is now concluded".

In a statement, the club added: "During an extensive Premier League investigation, the club proactively disclosed many thousands of documents.

"From the outset of this process, the club has treated these matters with the utmost seriousness, providing full cooperation to all relevant regulators."

Speaking on Monday ahead of Chelsea's Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night, head coach Liam Rosenior said; "I think actually that's a line drawn through that issue, and we can move on and we can plan to make this club as strong as possible in the long term."

A separate disciplinary process involving the club's alleged breaches of Football Association regulations "arising out of similar conduct" remains ongoing, the league said.

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