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Chelsea have been fined €11.6 million by the Premier League and handed a one-year suspended ban from signing first-team players. The London club are deemed to have broken financial rules under the previous owner, Roman Abramovich, who departed Chelsea in 2022 when he sold the club to BlueCo. Although the ban technically means the Stamford Bridge club can’t sign first-team players, it is suspended over two years. Which means the club can still continue business as usual and won’t be deducted any points if they avoid committing any further breaches.

According to The Athletic, the charges are regarding “incomplete financial reporting and missed payments” from 10 years ago and have no impact on Chelsea’s current standing within the Premier League’s financial fair play rules. A statement from the Premier League also confirmed that the club was investigated for “undisclosed payments by third parties associated with the club were made to players, unregistered agents and other third parties” between 2011 and 2018. The league authorities also stated that Chelsea accepted that these payments were treated as having been made by the club and, as such, the failure to disclose them to the league constituted a breach of the requirement to act in good faith.

In a club statement, Chelsea said: “Chelsea Football Club is pleased to confirm that the club has reached a settlement with the Premier League in relation to historical regulatory matters that were self-reported by the club in 2022.The club voluntarily and proactively disclosed to all applicable regulators potential historical rule breaches, including incomplete financial reporting that took place over a decade ago.”

The English giants were also hit with a second sanction from the Premier League, relating to breaches of the English top-flight’s Youth Development Rules. A senior employee at Chelsea was deemed to have broken rules when registering academy players between 2019 and 2022. This was voluntarily reported by Chelsea in 2025 and now means that the club face another fine of €867k and a nine-month ban on signing signing academy players who have previously been registered with another Premier League or EFL club in the preceding 18 months