Chelsea are in talks with the Premier League over agreeing a financial settlement for payments relating to transfers made during the Roman Abramovich era.
Sources familiar with the talks have told The Athletic that they are nearing a resolution, and the club are confident that they will avoid a sporting sanction by agreeing a financial settlement, as happened with their UEFA case in July 2023. Chelsea and the Premier League declined to comment when approached.
Following the Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly consortium buying Chelsea from Abramovich in May 2022, the new ownership group self-reported historical cases of incomplete payments made between 2012 and 2019 to the Premier League and UEFA, European football’s governing body.
UEFA fined Chelsea €10million (£8.6m, $11m) for historical breaches of its Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. The organisation added that the fine settled the matter and Chelsea would not face any sporting sanctions.
Then in November 2023, further questions were raised over Chelsea’s potential financial breaches during the Abramovich era after documents were leaked which appeared to show a series of payments — worth tens of millions of pounds — made by companies owned by the Russian to entities linked to deals that appeared to benefit his club.
Chelsea’s UEFA fine was handed out after the club “entered into a settlement agreement” with the organisation’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB). The Premier League handbook states that a “sanction agreement” can be reached between the league’s board and a party facing punishment, as long as that agreement is then ratified by a disciplinary panel.
Abramovich was forced to sell Chelsea following sanctions from the UK government, who described him as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch” in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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(Alexander Hassenstein – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
