Chelsea fined £10m over secret payments but avoid points deduction

Chelsea have received a £10m fine and a suspended transfer ban after admitting that the club made £47m in secret payments to unregistered agents and third parties involved in transfers between 2011 and 2018.

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

However, Chelsea avoided further punishments, such as a points deduction, for what the Premier League called “voluntarily self-reporting” of “historical breaches of rules”.

But the club did receive an immediate nine-month academy transfer ban and a £750,000 fine over the registration of academy players between 2019 and 2022.

The offences occurred under Roman Abramovich’s ownership and were reported after the Todd Boehly-led consortium acquired the club in 2022.

Signings mentioned in the report include those of Ramires, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic from Benfica, Willian and Samuel Eto’o from Anzhi Makhachkala, Eden Hazard from Lille and Andre Schurrle from Bayer Leverkusen. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of those players.

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