Live broadcast on August 9 NEWS The Times learned that the Premier League had conducted an investigation into Chelsea’s transactions in the Abu era, including a review of paying millions of pounds to secret offshore companies.
Before the investigation, Chelsea’s new boss reported to the Football Association, the Premier League and UEFA some financial transactions they found during the acquisition process from 2012 to 2019. In addition to the payments made to offshore companies, at least one payment made to the players’ families was also reviewed. Although any violation occurred under the previous ownership, the club may face penalties from the Premier League, such as huge fines and points deduction.
Chelsea was bought by the Burleigh consortium last year for 2.5 billion pounds. After the club’s new boss reported these improper transactions, the Premier League began an investigation, which is still in progress. Chelsea has reached a 10 million-euro settlement agreement with the European Union to make up for violations of financial fairness rules. UEFA said the reason for the fine was that “the owner before the club may have incomplete financial reports”.
Sources familiar with the case said it was confirmed that Chelsea had paid about six offshore companies, which were believed to be related to the transfer of players. These seven-digit payments do not seem to have been registered in the annual financial reports submitted by the club to the Football Association, the Premier League and Uefa. Some offshore companies were traced to football brokers and intermediaries, but sources familiar with the case said it was impossible to determine who was behind the scenes of other companies. It is believed that some of these transactions are related to Russia.
Chelsea signed the Danish defender Christenson in February, 2012, and the Chelsea payment received by the player’s father will also be investigated. According to the Politiken Leaks document released by Danish media in 2018, Chelsea seemed to recruit Stan Christenson as a scout on the day he signed the defender, and paid him 656640 pounds in 4 years, while old Christenson was still employed as goalkeeper coach by bloemderby.
The investigation of the Premier League may involve the problems of Bruce Barker, the former chairman of Chelsea, and Marina granovskaya, the director, who was responsible for managing the club in the second half of the Abu period. Glanov skaya is a Russian-Canadian businesswoman responsible for Chelsea’s transfer. When the New York Times asked her about her attitude towards the FFP investigation, she refused to respond: “I will not make any comments on this, really not.”
In June 2022, The Times said that Chelsea’s new owners deducted 0.1 billion pounds from the final purchase price because they were worried that they might inherit “unpredictable debts”. Uefa’s club financial control agency only considered the accounts of 2018 and 2019, because it had a five-year statute of limitations, but there was no such time limit in the Premier League. UEFA said that the settlement agreement with Chelsea would draw a clear line on financial violations and would take into account the regulations that violations would only be dealt with within the past five years.
(eagle)