Chelsea Hit with 74 FA Charges Over Decade of Agent Deals and Third-Party Breaches

English football has been shaken once again as Chelsea Football Club faces a staggering 74 charges from the Football Association, covering breaches in agent regulations and third-party investment rules between 2009 and 2022.

The majority of the allegations focus on the 2010/11 to 2015/16 seasons, a period when Roman Abramovich’s financial muscle had transformed Chelsea into one of the most feared clubs in Europe.

Abramovich’s £140 million takeover in 2003 changed not only Chelsea but English football itself. The Russian billionaire, who had endured a turbulent childhood marked by the loss of both parents at a young age, poured unprecedented sums into Stamford Bridge.

In just two years, the club lifted its first Premier League title in half a century. But beneath the glittering success, questions over financial practices and compliance with evolving regulations were beginning to simmer.

The FA’s charges center on how Chelsea managed agent relationships and third-party rights during transfers. At the time, enforcement of these rules was notoriously inconsistent. A Premier League report from 2015 revealed that while 70% of transfers involved agents, only 25% were fully compliant with regulations. This suggests Chelsea’s situation was not an isolated scandal but part of a broader culture of murky dealings, one that the FA and FIFA were only beginning to tighten their grip on.

By 2018, FIFA had banned the practice of third-party ownership of players, yet Abramovich’s Chelsea had already engaged in such arrangements, including a notable 2018 sale of player rights later ruled illegal. While the FA insists that the current charges are separate from Abramovich’s 2022 sanctions over the Ukraine conflict — sanctions that forced him to sell the club to Todd Boehly’s consortium — the timing underscores how financial oversight in football has shifted dramatically over the last decade.

Chelsea, under Abramovich, embodied football’s new world order: massive spending, aggressive transfer dealings, and the rise of agents as power brokers. But the FA’s move to bring forward 74 charges reflects its new hardline stance. Since its 2024 regulatory overhaul, which came into effect in June 2025, the governing body has promised to crack down on agent excesses and opaque financial arrangements that have long haunted the game.

What this means for Chelsea today is still uncertain. While the alleged breaches stretch back years, the FA’s willingness to revisit past transactions signals a new era of accountability, one where historical success stories may yet face retroactive scrutiny. For Abramovich, who once stood as the most influential owner in English football, the shadow of his methods now looms larger than ever.

This case is not just about Chelsea. It is about a sport wrestling with its past and struggling to enforce the financial rules it once neglected. The FA’s charges may well set a precedent, not only for how English clubs operate moving forward, but for how the ghosts of football’s golden-spending era will be judged in the cold light of regulation.