A token £10M fine has been deemed sufficient punishment from the Premier League 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.
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.
“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.
“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.