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Chelsea have been banned from signing academy players for nine months, but escaped a first-team sanction after being found guilty of making illegal payments during the Roman Abramovich era. They have, however, received a one-year suspended ban on signing players for the first team.

The Blues have also been handed the biggest-ever fine dished out by the league of £10.75million. Chelsea have accepted an independent commission's ratification, following a league investigation, having self-reported potential breaches during the 2022 takeover by Clearlake and Todd Boehly.

It was established that between 2011 and 2018, undisclosed payments by third parties associated with the club were made to players, unregistered agents and third parties.

The Premier League released a statement confirming that Chelsea "has accepted, among other things, that the making of these payments, as well as the failure to disclose them to the League, constituted a breach of the requirement to act in good faith towards the League."

Transfers involving Eden Hazard, David Luis, Andre Schurrle, Ramires, Nemanja Matic, William and Samuel Eto'o have all been named.

The BBC claim that had Chelsea not self-reported the historic payments, they would have received a full two-year transfer ban.

A separate FA disciplinary process involving the alleged breaches of FA regulations remains ongoing.

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A Chelsea statement read: "Chelsea Football Club is pleased to confirm that the club has reached a settlement with the Premier League in relation to historical regulatory matters that were self-reported by the club in 2022.

"As previously announced, the club voluntarily and proactively disclosed to all applicable regulators potential historical rule breaches, including incomplete financial reporting that took place over a decade ago.

"During an extensive Premier League investigation, the club proactively disclosed many thousands of documents. Also, when requests for information were made by the Premier League, the club promptly provided comprehensive responses and facilitated all lines of inquiry to support a complex and extremely thorough process.

"Furthermore, during the investigation, additional evidence was provided to the club by a third party regarding potential breaches of Premier League rules committed by a former employee in a small number of historical academy transactions. This information was immediately and proactively self-reported to the Premier League.

"The club wishes to make clear that following robust financial analysis by the Premier League, it was concluded that 'in no scenario would the club have exceeded the maximum allowable loss of £105 million over the three-year assessment period in the Rules.' Accordingly there is no scenario in which the club could have been in breach of the applicable limits in the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability Rules during the applicable seasons historically.

"From the outset of this process, the club has treated these matters with the utmost seriousness, providing full cooperation to all relevant regulators. The club welcomes the recognition from the Premier League of its 'exceptional cooperation' and that 'without those voluntary disclosures and the act of self-reporting, a number of the Premier League rule breaches may never have come to the attention of the League'.

"The club accepts the terms of the settlement in full, details of which have been published on the Premier League website. For clarity, the nine-month restriction on registering Academy players applies immediately, but only to academy players who have previously been registered with another League or EFL club in the preceding 18 months. It does not apply to current Chelsea players, international players or players who are applying for their first registration at Under 9.

"We are pleased that the matter is now concluded."

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