Chelsea to face second punishment from FA for breaking rules after record fine issued

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The Football Association are ready to follow the Premier League's lead by issuing Chelsea with another fine for historic rule-breaking.

The Premier League side were hit with a £10million fine on Monday for historical breaches relating to Financial Reporting and Third Party Investment, as well as an academy transfer ban.

Chelsea have been found guilty by the Premier League of making undisclosed payments to third parties associated with the club, to players, unregistered agents and other third parties. The Times now reports that the FA have nearly finished their own investigation and are ready to issue a similar punishment, with another multi-million pound fine on the cards.

Whilst they also had the power to impose a points deduction, it is understood that no such punishment will be handed down. Last September the FA announced that Chelsea had been issued with 74 charges for breaching regulations.

In 2022 the club's new owners, BlueCo, the consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, self reported their breaches to the Premier League after buying the club from Roman Abramovich.

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It has ultimately resulted in them copping the biggest fine ever handed out by the Premier League. The charges related to the signings of Eden Hazard, Willian, Ramires, David Luiz, Andre Schurrle, Nemanja Matic and Samuel Eto’o. Three unknown players all involved undisclosed payments of millions of pounds. Payments were also made to former director of football Frank Arnesen.

The club have also been handed an immediate nine-month ban from registering academy players from Premier League and EFL clubs and will pay a £750,000, which comes after an additional investigation.

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The fact that the Chelsea hierarchy self reported the breaches has given them given significant mitigation. They discovered the payments during the takeover process with the Premier League satisfied that even if the payments had all been declared, Chelsea would still have complied with its Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

The Premier League judgment states: “The investigation determined, and the club has similarly admitted, that the payments made… occurred with the knowledge and approval of certain senior former officers and/or directors of the club; were made via the third party entities with funds which, it is understood, were controlled by or associated with the then owner of the club, Mr Roman Abramovich.”

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