A token £10M fine has been deemed sufficient punishment for 74 charges of illegal payments made by Chelsea in the Abramovich era.
It represents the largest fine in Premier League history but pales into insignificance in terms of the illegal payments involved and the huge revenues generated from the sporting advantage gained, which saw Chelsea win the won the Champions League, Premier League, Europa League and FA Cup over a 7-year period when Roman Abramovich owned the club.
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But the Premier League has seen fit to talk up the ‘exceptional cooperation’ from the club in effectively self-reporting these breaches, plus their reworking of historical accounts to ‘ensure’ that Profitability and Sustainability Rules were not broken.
A Premier League statement said: “As a result of the Premier League’s investigation, it was established that between 2011 and 2018, undisclosed payments by third parties associated with the club were made to players, unregistered agents and other third parties. These payments were not disclosed to the football regulatory authorities at the time, including the Premier League. 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 failure to disclose them to the League, constituted a breach of the requirement to act in good faith towards the League.
“The Premier League assessed a series of recalculations of the club’s historical financial submissions which took into account the payments made for the benefit of Chelsea FC. Importantly, having undertaken that assessment, the Premier League Board was satisfied that in no scenario would the club have breached the League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules during the relevant periods, had the relevant payments been properly included in the club’s historical financial submissions.
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“When considering the appropriate sanction, the Premier League Board noted that the club’s proactive self-reporting, admissions of breach and exceptional co-operation throughout the investigation acted as significant mitigating factors.
“The Premier League and Chelsea FC have now entered into a sanction agreement under which the club accepts a £10M fine and a suspended one-year first team transfer ban (suspended for two years).
“In addition, the League also investigated potential breaches of the Premier League’s Youth Development Rules, committed by a former senior employee, relating to the club’s registration of Academy players between 2019 and 2022. This followed a further voluntary report by the club in 2025.
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“As a result of this additional investigation, a separate sanction agreement has been entered into with Chelsea FC, under which the club has accepted an immediate nine-month ban from registering academy players from Premier League and EFL clubs. The club will also pay a £750,000 fine.
“All sanctions will take effect immediately with the club also paying the full costs of the League’s investigation and disciplinary processes.”
The illicit payments were uncovered during the due diligence process when the Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly consortium bought the club from Abramovich. They were self-reported by the current owners to Uefa, the FA and the Premier League, with £100M set aside from the agreed £2.5B sale price to cover any financial penalties that may have resulted.
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Reader Comments (6)
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Chelsea just received a £10.75M fine and a suspended transfer ban for illegal hidden payments to players and agents during the Abramovich era.
Premier League were satisfied no PSR breach and significant mitigation given for new owners owning up.
They cheated, they broke the rules, many times, and they got a paltry fine and suspended sentence….
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I think if they published all the details of the illegal payments we might know if this is a fit and proper punishment. The suspended ban is a total irrelevance, this ban should not be suspended but should have come into force in the summer. I read a piece a while back and the payments made by Abramovich were direct payments to players and agents, so how do the likes of Everton, Forest and Leicester get points deductions for overspending the PSR rules yet Chelsea through their owner Abramovich get a suspended sentence rathe rthan a points deduction.
But obviously we are still waiting for the ruling on City, no doubt they have set the precedent of suspended sentence so no doubt the same will be metered out to City. Mind the rest of the gutless chairmen of all the other Premier leagues clubs will just nod this through.
Brian,
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It’s telling that the Premier League say they recalculated all the historical accounts with the illegal payments added in and — surprise, surprise — Chelsea never breached any PSR thresholds!!
Yea, right. Just far too easy to make sure that was the case in retrospect, so that any real embarrassment of the Premier League could be avoided.
Tony Abrahams
5 Posted 16/03/2026 at 15:15:38
Let’s see how much flak we get before we do the same with Man City, because there charges have surely got to be dealt with sooner or later.
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Rob Dolby
6 Posted 16/03/2026 at 15:19:08
This whole thing stinks. Just because the illegal payments are within psr limits doesn’t make them all of a sudden less of a breach.
10m fine is nothing to Chelsea they will just sell part of a car park back to themselves to cover it.
They have gained sporting advantage by illegal means, A points deduction is a sporting punishment and should have been given. A year without European football would hurt them more than a 10m fine.
Is this now the precedent for City’s 110 breaches? So expect a 20m fine and nothing more to be seen here
Another nail in the coffin for the beautiful game and fans.