Chelsea fined over £47m worth of secret payments

Chelsea have been fined £10m and handed a suspended transfer ban after admitting making £47m in secret payments to unregistered agents and third-parties over transfers between 2011 and 2018.

The £10m fine is the largest ever imposed by the Premier League, topping the £5.5m fine given to West Ham United in 2007 over the signings of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez.

Chelsea also received an immediate nine-month academy transfer ban and a £750,000 fine over the registration of academy players between 2019 and 2022.

The Premier League’s report named a number of transfers related to the unregistered payments, including those of Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto’o, Willian, Ramires, David Luiz, Andre Schurrle and Nemanja Matic.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of those players,

The club accepted the historical charges, which occurred under Roman Abramovich’s ownership.

The Premier League said “undisclosed payments by third parties associated with the club were made to players, unregistered agents and other third parties” for the “benefit or Chelsea”.

The Premier League added that the £10m fine would have been £20m, but was reduced by 50% on account of Chelsea’s proactive self-reporting and co-operation with the process.

Chelsea self-reported the potential breaches after Todd Boehly’s consortium acquired the club in 2022.

The club said: “From the outset of this process, the club has treated these matters with the utmost seriousness, providing full cooperation to all relevant regulators.”

The Premier League said Chelsea would not have breached its Profitability and Sustainability rules during the applicable seasons, even if the payments had been registered and it therefore did not deem a points deduction to be an appropriate punishment.

In 2023, the Blues were fined £8.6m by Uefa for “submitting incomplete financial information” for the period between 2012 and 2019.

A separate FA disciplinary process investigating alleged “use of and the making of payments to unregistered agents” is ongoing.

Chelsea won two Premier League titles, two FA Cups, one Champions League, one Europa League and one League Cup between the period of 2011-2018.

They employed six different permanent managers during the seven-year spell, though there is no suggestion that any head coach was part of the wrongdoing.

Chelsea will be relieved to avoid a sporting sanction, which had been the primary concern since the Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital ownership reported discrepancies discovered during their purchase of the club from Roman Abramovich.

The club notes that the Premier League’s investigation shows that even if the higher estimated costs of the off‑books payments to agents had been included in previous Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) calculations, the club would still have been compliant.

Their statement also stresses that they effectively opened up their entire bookkeeping system to the Premier League for the purposes of the investigation.

All parties say that thousands of documents were reviewed.

The nine‑month academy transfer ban is a setback. It applies to all age groups above the entry‑level Under‑nines, although it will not affect overseas recruitment.

The ban was issued because of “early contact” made without the selling club’s permission.

However, Chelsea point out that these breaches occurred under the previous leadership.

The fact the mitigating circumstances highlighted that the fine could have been £20m – and that a transfer ban and a points deduction were also considered – shows how Chelsea’s decision to be fully cooperative was a sound judgment.