How Chelsea signed the Stars with hidden payments

With Chelsea having so much success signing stars through secret payments, have they come off lightly?

If the club is not very cooperative, they will face a harsher financial penalty and possibly a points deduction.

The starting point was the aggravating factors – the length of time the violations were committed, the size of the payments, which were made by prominent figures and the seriousness of the violations.

The English Premier League’s board of directors concluded that Chelsea should be fined £20 million and banned from transfers for two full and consecutive windows.

But there were mitigating factors to take into consideration.

BlueCo, which bought Chelsea from Abramovich’s ownership, self-reported the breaches once it had reviewed the club’s books.

In addition, BlueCo has made voluntary disclosures and demonstrated “exceptional cooperation.”

This resulted in the fine being halved to £10m and the transfer ban being suspended for two windows.

The suspension will be triggered if they commit a similar breach in the next two years.

The Board also reserves the right to be able to activate the suspension at any time in the future if the Club makes deliberately untrue statements.

However, Chelsea were ordered to pay unpaid transfer tax of £771,288 in relation to Willian and Eto’o. They were also banned from signing academy players for nine months.

Most importantly, there was no violation of the rules of profit and sustainability.

When the payments were added to Chelsea’s accounts, they did not exceed the £105m spending limit for three seasons.

If that were the case, the possibility of points being deducted would be real.

The Blues have already been fined €10m (£8.6m) by UEFA for the same offences.

Chelsea still have to face a hearing on 74 charges from the Football Association, which is likely to be another hefty fine.

So this is not over yet.