Sky Sports reported on Tuesday that Chelsea have been fined £10.75 million and given one-year transfer window ban for for illegally paying agents to poach players during the tenure of former Russian owner Roman Abramovich.

According to the report, the transfer window ban will be suspended for two years. This means the Blues can still make signings for their first-team in the upcoming summer and next year's winter transfer windows, but the club cannot repeat the same offense during this period.

Meanwhile, Chelsea will also be banned from making youth academy transfers for nine months. This ban is effective immediately and applies only to academy players poached from clubs within the English football system. Players currently under professional contracts and those under the age of nine are not affected.

In addition, Chelsea must pay £750,000 in legal costs and reimburse the Premier League for all costs incurred in this case.

According to a follow-up report by The Athletic, Chelsea's current management actually reported this violation to the Premier League and UEFA themselves.

Because Chelsea were completely cooperative and open throughout the investigation, the club received a reduction from its original £20 million fine and a two-year transfer window ban.

Furthermore, because the violations occurred over 10 years ago and were part of the previous owner's offenses, the current Financial Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) violations mdo not apply to this case.

The illegal transfer proceedings that led to the convictions primarily occurred between 2011 and 2018.

During this period, Chelsea illegally paid over £23 million to seven unregistered agents "or related entities" in the transfer and registration of seven players, including Eden Hazard, Ramires, David Luiz, André Schürrle, and Nemanja Matic.

During this period, Chelsea also paid a total of £47,524,925.74 to 12 individuals or companies, "each payment violating one or more rules."

During this spell, Chelsea won the Premier League title twice, the FA Cup once, the League Cup once, the Champions League once, and the Europa League once.

The Times added that this ruling is unrelated to the 2023 allegations that Chelsea allegedly used similar methods to poach Willian, Samuel Eto'o, Moises Caicedo, and Romeo Lavia, and the Crystal Palace allegations that they attempted to illegally approach Michael Olise privately. Investigations into those two cases are ongoing.

Regarding the ruling, Chelsea stated on their official website: "From the outset, the club has taken this matter with utmost seriousness and has fully cooperated with all relevant regulatory bodies.

The club welcomes the Premier League's recognition of its 'excellent cooperation' and stated that 'without these voluntary disclosures and proactive reports, many of the Premier League's misconduct might never have been known to the League.'"

It's worth mentioning that Chelsea were previously punished with a two-transfer window ban in the summer of 2019 for violating the same regulations.

At that time, Roman Abramovich was accused of illegally paying up to 74 individuals or companies for transfers, falsifying financial reports, and violating Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.

This forced the club to rely heavily on players from the youth academy, such as Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Trevor Chalobah, and Reece James.

Image source: Internet / Sky Sports