Will Chelsea be banned from Europe for breaking FFP?

Carlo Garganese

• Updated: 4 Sept 2024 12:48 BST
• 3 min read

Chelsea will not be banned from playing in Europe for breaking FFP rules, according to one of football’s best finance experts.

Stefan Borson predicts that Chelsea are most likely to receive heavy fines from UEFA for financial offences, rather than an outright ban on playing in European competitions such as the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.

Chelsea have been under heavy financial scrutiny for several months for a number of reasons.

First of all, the Blues have been spending world record sums of money in the transfer market since the arrival of Todd Boehly in 2022.

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The amount spent on transfer fees in the last two years is fast closing in on €1.5 billion. Never before has more money been spent on new signings.

Also under scrutiny is Chelsea’s decision to hand new signings long contracts in order to dilute their transfer fees as the total gets spread over the full length of the deal.

This accountancy trick has seen Nicolas Jackson sign a world record contract in terms of length lasting nine years.

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Cole Palmer has a contract expiring in 2032, while Renato Veiga and Mike Penders are tied to 2031, and 13 players in total with contracts until 2030.

Chelsea have also been criticised for raising cash to comply with financial rules by selling club assets to sister companies.

For example, last year Chelsea’s ownership group BlueCo sold two Stamford Bridge hotels to a sister company for £76.5million.

BlueCo also sold their women’s team for over a reported £150 million.

The Times reported last week that UEFA will not allow clubs to register earnings made from transactions where assets are sold to sister companies.

This raised further questions as to how Chelsea could possibly not breach financial fair play regulations.

It was reported elsewhere that Chelsea risked being banned from Europe from the 2025-26 season for breaching rules.

But finance expert Stefan Borson believes that fines are more likely if they are found guilty of breaking rules.

What did Borson say?

“The way the Uefa rules work is they set out tariffs for a failure,” Borson told Football Insider.

“The more you fail, the bigger the fine.

“I think eventually they do have a wider range of rights around potentially excluding clubs from competitions.

“But from what I know, I don’t think Chelsea are anywhere near that at this stage.”

Chelsea are competing in the UEFA Conference League this season after finishing sixth in the Premier League last term.