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Chelsea have been fined £10million and given a suspended two-window transfer ban after an appeal hearing into their sanction for breaching FA agents rules.
The club were initially given a suspended six-point deduction along with the fine but the points penalty has now been replaced by the suspended transfer ban.
Chelsea have already signed numerous players this summer with Maxence Lacroix joining from Crystal Palace in a deal worth a reported £55 million. The Blues have already brought in Morgan Rogers, Marco Palestra, Geovany Quenda, Denner, Dastan Satpaev and Emmanuel Emegha.
Danny Welbeck from Brighton and Jordan Henderson from Brentford are both expected to arrive in the coming days.
Chelsea’s 74 breaches
The FA confirmed the imposition of sanctions on the west London club on Friday, who admitted to 74 breaches in total of FA regulations covering agents, working with intermediaries and third party investment in players.
The club’s new owners self-reported the breaches to the football authorities in 2022, when they were in the process of buying the club from Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
The six-point deduction, suspended until June 30, 2027 was imposed by the independent commission which initially heard the case but the club appealed against that. An appeal board instead replaced the points penalty with the suspended two-window transfer ban.
Can Chelsea still sign Welbeck from Brighton
Yes. The two-window player registration transfer ban is suspended so Chelsea can still be active in the market this window. Welbeck is expected to complete his medical and the 35-year-old will join the Blues on a two-year deal for a reported fee of around £5m. The transfer ban has been suspended until June 30, 2027.
Chelsea statement
Chelsea issued a statement saying: “In 2022, the club self-reported potential historical rule breaches to all applicable regulators. Following that report, it has worked openly and transparently with all regulators, including voluntarily and proactively disclosing many thousands of documents.”
The club said they were “pleased to confirm that, now the FA process has concluded, this brings all regulatory proceedings against the club to a close”.
The written reasons from the original independent commission, which heard the case on December 8 last year, confirmed the 74 FA charges related to 44 transactions involving 32 players between July 2009 and August 2022.
That commission’s findings criticised the “breathtaking disregard” for the rules shown by senior executives at the club at the time. Two of the transfers referenced in the written reasons are those of Samuel Eto’o and Willian to Chelsea, though there is no suggestion whatsoever of any wrongdoing by the players themselves.
FA statement
It stated later in the written reasons: “Having carefully considered all the circumstances of the case, we are satisfied that the aggravating features far outweigh the mitigation which is available to CFC. We sympathise with the current owners of CFC who now have to pay the penalty for the conduct of their arrogant predecessors, who clearly believed that they were above the law.
“Nevertheless, that conduct was so egregious, so persistent and of such a duration that an overall sanction, whilst taking account of the mitigation which has rightly been described as ‘very powerful’, must reflect the fact that over a period of 13 years, one of the leading clubs under the umbrella and authority of the FA, if not in Europe, behaved in such a way that the integrity of football, and the competitions in which it was competing, was seriously compromised.”
Appeal board
The appeal board agreed with Chelsea that there was “insufficient evidence” identified by the original commission to support the findings that the club did gain an actual sporting advantage, and quashed the points penalty.
It described that sanction as “excessive” given the exceptional level of mitigation involved in the club self-reporting the breaches.
Can Chelsea still sign Danny Welbeck from Brighton after FA punishment?