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Record fine for Chelsea

Chelsea have been fined £27million by Uefa for breaching its financial rules — with the threat of having to pay a further £51.8million — and also face potential restrictions on transfer spending.   It forms part of a crackdown by Uefa on some of Europe’s top teams.

Aston Villa have also been fined £9.5million by Uefa for breaching rules, Barcelona £13million and Lyon £10.8million. Chelsea’s punishment is the largest fine the European governing body has ever imposed on a club.

The clubs “may not register any new player on its List A to Uefa club competitions unless the List A transfer balance is positive”, Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) announced. That means any spending on new players must be covered by income from the sales of outgoing players — it could mean that new signings cannot be added to those clubs’ A lists unless existing squad members are sold.

Further fines will be imposed if Chelsea and Villa — who will play in the Champions League and Europa League respectively this season — do not meet future financial targets agreed with Uefa. That is up to a further £51.8million in Chelsea’s case and £13million in Villa’s.

Chelsea and Villa have both breached two Uefa rules. One is the football earnings rule, which replaced Financial Fair Play and covers financial losses made by the clubs, and the other is the squad cost rule where clubs cannot spend more than 80 per cent of their revenue on player wages, transfers and agents fees. That will also go down to 70 per cent for the 2025-26 season.

Chelsea were fined an immediate £17.2million for breaching the football earnings rule and £9.5million for breaching the squad cost rule. Villa were fined £4.3million and £5.2million for those breaches respectively.

Unlike the Premier League’s financial rules, Uefa refuses to recognise the sales of assets to sister companies as income. That has meant Chelsea have not been able to claim £200million as income from the sale of Chelsea’s women’s team to the club’s parent company and £70.5million from the sale of two hotels by Chelsea to a sister company.

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