According to The Athletic, following an independent regulatory commission's finding that Manchester City was guilty on nearly all charges of breaching Premier League financial rules, Chelsea's previous efforts to resolve financial issues inherited from the Abramovich era have come under renewed scrutiny. The Athletic suggests that BlueCo's decision to disclose problems proactively and actively cooperate with investigators after acquiring Chelsea helped the club avoid potentially more severe consequences.

When BlueCo approached the completion of its Chelsea acquisition in May 2022, a number of issues were identified during the club's financial audit. The new owners therefore withheld £100 million from the final purchase price to cover "unexpected liabilities" and proactively notified UEFA, the Premier League, and the Football Association (FA) of problems related to financial declarations, undisclosed agent commissions, and third-party investments.

Subsequently, all three organizations launched investigations. In September 2025, the FA charged Chelsea with 74 alleged breaches spanning 2009 to 2022, which quickly drew comparisons to Manchester City's case involving 115 charges.

However, The Athletic notes that there is a fundamental difference in the nature of the breaches faced by Chelsea and Manchester City, and BlueCo's choice to cooperate rather than engage in prolonged legal battles with regulators yielded significant results across three separate investigations.

In July 2023, Chelsea reached an agreement with UEFA, agreeing to pay a one-time fine of €10 million to settle issues of "incomplete financial reporting" from 2012 to 2019.

In March of this year, the Premier League announced a settlement agreement with Chelsea. Chelsea was fined £10 million and received a one-year transfer ban for the first team, suspended for two years, for breaches of financial reporting rules and third-party investment regulations.

In July of this year, the FA proceedings concluded with penalties largely mirroring those from the Premier League: a £10 million fine and a one-year transfer ban for the first team, suspended for two years. Additionally, the regulatory commission initially imposed a six-point deduction on Chelsea, also suspended until the end of the 2026/27 season. However, Chelsea successfully appealed, and the points deduction was overturned.

This means that as long as Chelsea does not breach relevant rules during the probationary period, the club will effectively face no transfer ban. Moreover, the total penalties across all three regulatory investigations were even less than the cost of Chelsea's acquisition of young winger João Félix from Benfica.

More importantly, these sanctions currently have no direct negative sporting impact on manager Enzo Maresca and his team.

The Premier League investigation covered 36 payments totaling more than £47.5 million. These payments were made by third-party organizations controlled or affiliated with Abramovich to 12 individuals or entities between 2011 and 2018. The expenditures ultimately benefited Chelsea but were not disclosed to the Premier League.

The transfers affected by these violations include Chelsea's acquisitions of players such as Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz, Ramires, Nemanja Matić, Samuel Eto'o, and André Schürrle. These players subsequently helped Chelsea win numerous trophies, including its first Champions League title, two Premier League titles, and numerous domestic and European honors.

The Athletic points out that a natural advantage for BlueCo is that they were not part of the Abramovich-era management. The departures of former Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck and director Marina Granovskaia within weeks of the acquisition strengthened the claim that the new ownership had broken with the past.

However, BlueCo relied on more than just a change in leadership, continuing to actively cooperate after the initial disclosure of problems.

In its written decision, the FA regulatory commission stated that Chelsea demonstrated an "unprecedented degree of cooperation," providing an "enormous amount of significant evidence" to regulators and facilitating interviews with current and former staff members.

At the Premier League investigation level, Chelsea also achieved a favorable outcome on a key issue: the investigation determined that the scale of these undisclosed payments was insufficient for Chelsea to have breached the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability Rules in the relevant years.

Everton and Nottingham Forest previously suffered points deductions for breaching similar rules, making this determination crucial for Chelsea.

Furthermore, the Premier League did not allege that Chelsea gained a sporting advantage by signing players such as Hazard and Willian, and the FA ultimately did not use this as a basis for its penalties.

However, the FA regulatory commission took a stricter view on this matter.

The three-person panel found Chelsea's actions at the time to be "extremely serious, unprecedented in scale, and entirely consistent with a longstanding culture of non-compliance." The commission also determined that the club's primary and general motive was to gain a sporting advantage, and that Chelsea indeed benefited from this.

The panel concluded that this advantage manifested in Chelsea's ability to build a squad with greater depth than would have been possible under full compliance with the rules, and in competitors being denied a fair opportunity to compete for the relevant players.

Based on this reasoning, the FA regulatory commission initially set a 15-point deduction as the starting point for punishment. Subsequently, thanks to Chelsea's early disclosure and active cooperation with the investigation, the deduction was reduced to 10 points; and further reduced to 6 points, suspended until the end of the 2026/27 season, because the club admitted the facts at an early stage. Ultimately, these 6 points were overturned in the appeal process.

The Athletic believes that BlueCo's approach created opportunities for penalty reductions for Chelsea at virtually every stage of the disciplinary process.

The article also notes that some of the trophies Chelsea won during the Abramovich era in the 2010s may become the subject of long-term disputes due to these regulatory findings. However, these titles have not been stripped, and for most Chelsea supporters, the significance of these honors is unlikely to change as a result.

In contrast, the disciplinary case between Manchester City and the Premier League remains ongoing. If the decision against Manchester City is upheld following the appeal process, subsequent sanctions could include fines, transfer bans, points deductions, league demotion, exclusion from the league, or even title stripping.

The Athletic believes that against this backdrop, Chelsea's previous approach becomes even more significant. BlueCo's first four years at Chelsea have not been smooth, but at least in resolving the financial problems inherited from the Abramovich era, the club has successfully avoided a potentially more severe and protracted regulatory crisis through early disclosure and full cooperation.

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