Chelsea Football Club has been charged 74 times by the Football Association (FA) for allegedly breaking rules related to agents and third-party ownership between 2009 and 2022.
According to the FA, most of these breaches happened between 2010 and 2016, during the time Roman Abramovich owned the club.
Chelsea has responded with a statement saying the issues were found by the club itself and reported to the authorities. The current owners said they discovered the problems while carrying out checks before completing the takeover in May 2022.
Here’s part of the club’s statement:
“Chelsea FC is pleased to confirm that its discussions with the FA, regarding issues the club reported itself, are now nearly finished.
Before buying the club, the new ownership team noticed some possible problems with how finances were reported in the past and other potential breaches of FA rules.
As soon as the purchase was complete, the club reported everything to the relevant authorities, including the FA.
Throughout the process, Chelsea has been completely open, sharing full access to documents and historical records.
The club continues to work closely with the FA to bring the matter to a close as soon as possible.
Chelsea also thanked the FA for their cooperation on this complicated case, which mostly relates to events from over 10 years ago.”
The charges concern the period when Roman Abramovich owned the club. They do not involve the current owners, BlueCo, who took over in May 2022.
