Chelsea will not face a Champions League ban next season should they finish in the top five.
Thanks to the Premier League ’s improved UEFA coefficient this year, the team finishing fifth will also qualify for Europe’s premier competition, rather than just the traditional top four.
Enzo Maresca’s side remain in contention to do so, although both Nottingham Forest and Manchester City have a game in hand.
Chelsea’s final fixture of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign will be against top-five rivals Forest next weekend. Should they get the job done, the London club will return to the Champions League for the first time since the 2022/23 season.
However, the ownership situation at Stamford Bridge had posed a potential obstacle. The BlueCo consortium, which owns Chelsea, also holds a controlling stake in Ligue 1 side Strasbourg.
Under English manager Liam Rosenior, the French club had been enjoying a strong run of form and were in contention for Champions League qualification right up until the final day of the Ligue 1 season, which took place on Saturday.
UEFA has long maintained a firm stance against multi-club ownership models in which two clubs controlled by the same entity compete in the same competition.
According to a report from the BBC earlier this month, Chelsea have been in discussions with UEFA since January to ensure a compliant structure was in place in the event their sister club also qualified.
The two main options to meet UEFA's requirements are either reducing the ownership stake in one of the clubs, or placing one of them into a blind trust to ensure the owner cannot exert influence over both.
This is the approach taken by Evangelos Marinakis, who reduced his control over one of his clubs as a precaution in case both Forest and Olympiakos qualified for the Champions League.
Fortunately for Chelsea, this will no longer be an issue next season, regardless of which European competition they qualify for. Strasbourg suffered a dramatic 3-2 defeat to Le Havre on Saturday evening, conceding a 99th-minute penalty.
The result leaves them seventh in the Ligue 1 table, missing out on European qualification by three points and the Champions League by four.
While it’s a bitter blow for Chelsea’s sister club and their shared ownership, it means the Blues can secure Champions League football next weekend without the need for BlueCO to change their Strasbourg ownership structure to satisfy UEFA’s multi-club rules.
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Chelsea flag prior the UEFA Champions League Quarter Final Leg One match between Chelsea FC and Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge. (Photo by Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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