Chelsea fined £10m, avoid points penalty and receive Mykhailo Mudryk boost
Chelsea have been fined a further £10m by the Football Association but avoided a points deduction after admitting more than 70 charges of breaking financial rules.
The breaches took place under the previous ownership of Roman Abramovich and related to secret payments to agents, including in the signings of Eden Hazard, Willian and Samuel Eto’o.
An independent commission convened by the FA initially imposed a suspended points deduction but Chelsea successfully challenged it on appeal and have instead received a suspended transfer ban.
The fine takes their total financial punishment to more than £20m after they were sanctioned by the Premier League over the same breaches earlier this year.
Chelsea argued for leniency on the grounds that their new owners, a US consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, had self-reported the offences upon discovering them.
However, the Premier League was criticised for agreeing to a settlement with Chelsea in March that did not include any sporting penalty.
The initial FA commission’s judgement was scathing about the conduct of senior Chelsea personnel over a period lasting more than a decade in which they won multiple trophies.
“Nevertheless, that conduct was so egregious, so persistent and of such a duration that an overall sanction, whilst taking account of the mitigation which has rightly been described as ‘very powerful’, must reflect the fact that over a period of 13 years, one of the leading clubs under the umbrella and authority of the FA, if not in Europe, behaved in such a way that the integrity of football, and the competitions in which it was competing, was seriously compromised,” it said.
Chelsea handed Mudryk boost
Chelsea have received a boost ahead of the new season, however, after the FA confirmed that winger Mykhailo Mudryk is free to play again following a ban for breaking anti-doping rules.
Mudryk has been sidelined for more than 18 months after testing positive for the banned substance meldonium in a drug test carried out in late 2024.
The Ukraine international appealed his four-year ban and has now agreed a deal with the FA and World Anti-Doping Agency that involved him admitting to the breaches and means his suspension ended on 30 July.
Mudryk joined Chelsea for £89m in January 2023 after they beat Arsenal to the signature of the highly-rated youngster but his career had stalled before his drug ban and he now faces a battle to resurrect his career.