English Premier League side, Chelsea, have reacted to their transfer ban being lifted, after an Appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), where they have also accused FIFA of selective treatment. While the club welcomed the latest development and thanked CAS for the ruling, they compared their case to that of Manchester City, and questioned FIFA how come they were handed a ban and City with similar offence were never issued a ban, if truly there was any breach.
Chelsea in a statement released on Friday 6th December 2019, said “the approach taken by FIFA to this case has been deeply unsatisfactory, not least as FIFA chose to treat Chelsea entirely differently to Manchester City for reasons that make absolutely no sense to Chelsea”
Fifa accused Chelsea of breaching rules on the signing of 27 under-18 players. However, the Blues claimed that in 16 of those cases, the players were registered in line with the advice that the game’s global governing body had given the Football Association in 2009.
Chelsea argued that the breaches of the alleged rule in the remaining 11 cases were either “procedural” or there was no case to answer because of precedents set in Cas’ ruling on Spanish side Real Madrid’s transfer ban in 2016.
Chelsea while reacting to the lifting of the transfer ban, they sought clarification from the Premier League in 2009 about whether it needed to apply for permission to register players in this category. “The FA subsequently liaised with FIFA and it was confirmed to Chelsea that players in this category were entitled to register and that no special application was required (and in fact no special application process existed). Accordingly, the fact that FIFA brought charges against Chelsea for this category of player was perverse. We are grateful that this appears to have been corrected by the CAS” the club said.
The club also state their position in relation to the remaining 11 players, saying six players qualified for one of the exceptions set out in the FIFA regulations. As a consequence, to the extent there was any breach in relation to these players, the breaches were of a procedural nature only.
The club also said “the remaining five players, FIFA’s position was that it “deemed” these players to have registered prior to any application for registration being made. Chelsea maintains, as was held by CAS in the Real Madrid case, that the FIFA regulations do not cover a concept of “deemed registrations” and accordingly it is not open to FIFA to “deem” that registrations were made before they were in fact made”.
The club ended their statement by saying that:
“Chelsea respects the importance of the work undertaken by FIFA in relation to the protection of minors and has fully cooperated with FIFA throughout its investigation. However, if FIFA continues to impose inconsistent and unequal sanctions on clubs then it will not only undermine the very purpose of the regulations, but it will also bring into doubt the game’s confidence in FIFA being able to appropriately regulate this important area”.