Chelsea have been sanctioned by the Premier League for breaches of its rules concerning both their men’s team and academy.
The club have been fined £10.75m ($14.3m) altogether, handed a suspended one-year ban from signing first-team men’s players, and restricted from certain academy signings for nine months after the league concluded its investigations into a variety of rule breaches.
The Athletic explains exactly what Chelsea have been punished for, how the sanctions were decided, and what it means.
What have Chelsea been punished for in relation to the senior team?
Chelsea have been punished for historic issues relating to payments between 2011 and 2018, made by third parties associated with the club, to “players, unregistered agents and other third parties.”
The payments were not disclosed to football authorities at the time, but were made for the benefit of the club and should have been treated as being made by the club.
What were the payments for?
The Premier League’s sanction agreement says those payments include more than £23m paid to seven unregistered agents, or entities associated with them, in connection with the transfer and registration of seven players, including Eden Hazard, Ramires, David Luiz, Andre Schurrle and Nemanja Matic. Two further player names are redacted.
There were also payments totalling over £19m noted in the agreement to two entities in connection with the transfer and registration of Willian and Samuel Eto’o, which the document says should be treated as though they were transfer fees paid on behalf of Chelsea. There is no suggestion that any of the players were involved in or aware of any wrongdoing.
More than £1.3m was paid to three individuals (or entities associated with them) that should have been treated by Chelsea as remuneration from the club, according to the agreement, namely former sporting director Frank Arnesen, scout Piet de Visser, and another individual whose name is redacted. The Premier League settlement agreement does not suggest any wrongdoing by the three men themselves.
The agreement highlights that another £3.8m was paid by third parties to one entity in connection with the transfer and registration of one player, whose name is redacted.
Overall, the payments that breached the rules totalled more than £47.5m.
Payments relating to the signing of Eden Hazard were made (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Who made these payments?
The sanction agreement sets out that in summer 2022, when they took over the club, Chelsea’s current owners BlueCo — the Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly-led consortium — informed the Premier League and FA that they had found a series of payments made by “third-party entities which, it is understood, were associated with the club’s previous owner, Mr Roman Abramovich, to a number of parties in respect of club football-related matters.”
For example, following the registration of Samuel Eto’o and Willian to Chelsea from Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala, Leiston Holdings Limited (a business registered in the British Virgin Islands and reported by the BBC to be owned by Abramovich) made payments to two other entities in the British Virgin Islands totalling around €24m. According to the sanction agreement, the “ultimate recipients” of those payments “appear to have been persons connected with” Anzhi Makhachkala.
Chelsea admitted that those payments were made for the club’s benefit and were in connection with the signings of Eto’o and Willian. The report does not suggest any wrongdoing by Anzhi.
What about PSR?
As part of the Premier League’s investigation, they effectively recalculated whether the payments made, had they been reported properly, would have put Chelsea in breach of Profit and Sustainability Rules.
Their analysis concluded that “in no scenario” would Chelsea have gone over the maximum allowed loss of £105m over a three-year assessment period.
What is the punishment?
Chelsea have been handed a £10m fine and a one-year transfer ban suspended for two years — meaning if there is no further breach in that time, there will be no transfer ban.
Effectively, the club’s first team has avoided sporting sanctions.
How was it decided?
The league’s statement says that Chelsea’s “proactive self-reporting, admissions of breach and exceptional cooperation throughout the investigation acted as significant mitigating factors.”
The full sanction agreement published by the Premier League sets out that, without mitigating factors, the league would have seen fit to react with a two-window (one-year) transfer ban and a £20m fine. Their cooperation led to that ban being suspended for two years and the fine being halved.
What about the Football Association investigation into Chelsea over 74 alleged breaches of transfer regulations during the Abramovich era?
This punishment relates to the same broader issues as the FA’s investigation, which was launched after Chelsea’s current ownership self-reported “financial irregularities” to UEFA, the FA and Premier League.
The outcome of the FA’s charges have not been announced. However, the sanction agreement contains a line that “an FA Regulatory Commission is likely to impose a significant sanction upon the club in respect of the FA Charges… a number of which concern transactions which are the subject of this Sanction Agreement.”
In other words, there is significant overlap between the issues the Premier League and FA are looking at, but there could still be a separate punishment on the way from the FA for Chelsea.
An FA spokesperson said: “As we announced on 11 September 2025, Chelsea FC is subject to a regulatory process in respect of conduct primarily occurring between the 2010-11 and 2015-16 seasons. That regulatory process is ongoing, and we will provide a further update upon its conclusion.”
What about the academy?
Chelsea’s academy will face sporting and financial sanctions due to a separate case involving breaches of the league’s Youth Development Rules.
For nine months from now, Chelsea will not be able to register new academy players who have been registered with other Premier League or EFL clubs in the past 18 months. This will only impact the summer 2026 transfer window. They have also been fined £750,000.
What are they being punished for?
These sanctions are for breaches of the league’s Youth Development Rules committed by a former employee between 2019 and 2022, relating to the club’s registration of academy players.
The sanction agreement sets out that in six instances, the club “made an approach to and/or communicated with the Academy Player, directly and/or indirectly, without the prior written consent of the club with which the Academy Player was registered at the relevant time.”
This investigation followed a voluntary report by the club in February 2025, which self-reported one day after receiving documents from a third party evidencing potential rule breaches.
The sanction agreement reads that “evidence suggests that the earliest prohibited approach of each relevant Academy Player occurred under the club’s previous ownership. There is also no evidence that the current ownership was aware of those breaches which occurred after it assumed control of the club.”
The sanction agreement sets out contact that was made with anonymised academy players “prior to the permitted time”, including:
- A FaceTime call with ‘Player A’ and members of his family, during which Player A was told Chelsea were interested in him
- ‘Player B’ visiting Chelsea’s training ground and receiving a presentation about the club’s academy and its plans for him
- It was arranged for “personalised merchandise” with the name and playing number of ‘Player C’ to be delivered to the training ground for the player, his parents, and his sister.
A player visited Chelsea’s training ground (Tom Dulat/Getty Images)
Which signings and players will it impact?
The restriction does not apply to current Chelsea players, international players, or players registering for the first time at under-9 level. It also does not affect players signing professional deals. For instance, had this sanction been in place, the deal done in 2024 to bring then-17-year-old Estevao to Chelsea the following summer would not be affected, as the Brazilian came straight into the first team on professional terms rather than going into the academy system.
What Chelsea cannot do while the ban is in place is sign players to their academy who have been registered in the under-9 to under-18 age groups at another EFL or Premier League club in the past 18 months.
For example, deals of this kind they have completed in the past include signing current under-21 captain Shumaira Mheuka from Brighton & Hove Albion at the end of his under-14 season, Ollie Harrison joining on a scholarship agreement from Newcastle United as a 16-year-old, and Leo Cardoso arriving from West Bromwich Albion at under-15 level.
How big an impact will this have? And could this benefit some players?
A core part of BlueCo’s model is actively recruiting young talent, and it is likely that Chelsea would have been planning some moves for the summer that they now will not be able to pursue. That does not stop them from returning to those deals in another window after the end of the ban, but there is a risk that other clubs could beat them to it.
In that sense, the ban is not ideal — but Chelsea have enough talent in their academy system already that this should not have an immediate effect on their ability to compete. The under-18s are currently second in the U18 Premier League South, while the under-21s sit top of the Premier League 2. Plenty of the core players in those squads have been promoted through from younger age groups, and that pattern will likely continue.
Also, while Chelsea sources, who asked to be kept anonymous to protect relationships, say the club are keen to breed competition in their academy, some players might be relieved that there is no threat of new signings in their position over the summer.