Chelsea have been handed a suspended one-year ban from signing first-team players and given a £10million ($13.7m; €11.6m) fine from the Premier League relating to breaches of financial rules during Roman Abramovich’s time as owner. The ban is suspended over two years, meaning that Chelsea will still be able to register senior players if they do not commit any further breaches. No sporting sanction, such as a points deduction, has been imposed. The club have also been banned from registering academy players for a period of nine months. The restriction, which comes into immediate effect, only applies to youth players that have previously been registered with another Premier League or English Football League club’s academy, and not any current players, international players or players who are registering on professional terms. It also does not apply to players who are applying for their first registration at Under-9 or otherwise, the Premier League said. The club will also pay a £750,000 ...
The Swiss Ramble was invited to give a presentation at the FT Football Business Summit on the increasingly popular model of multi-club ownership. For some reason this contribution was not publicised by the Pink 'Un. It is the most thorough data-based treatment I have seen of the motivations for multi-club ownership and the advantages and drawbacks of the model. Of itself it is a reason for subscribing to the Zurich-based football finance guru's Substack page. My only additional comment would be don't forget the wood for the trees. I would argue that globalisation is alive and well in football and one thing that a globalisation model encourages is holding assets in different countries, albeit that the junior subsidiaries lose out. The Swiss Ramble states: ' One of the best known examples of multi-club ownership is City Football Group, largely owned by Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG). They first acquired Manchester City in 2008, but have significantly expanded ...