Chelsea to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try and get transfer ban abstained

Photo credit: Sky Sports.

Following a rejection by FIFA to remove their transfer ban Chelsea will seek help from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to try and stop the ban from happening.

Chelsea appealed FIFA’s ban from late February which ruled that the club was banned from signing players until the end of January 2020, which will mean the club cannot sign players until the summer of 2021.

However, today the footballing governing body declined the Premier League side’s argument.

This prompted the club to release a statement:

“The Club is very disappointed that the transfer ban of two consecutive registration periods was not overturned.

“Chelsea FC categorically refutes the findings of the FIFA Appeal Committee. It acted in accordance with the relevant regulations and will appeal the decision to the CAS.”

FIFA imposed the ban due to findings in an investigation into their signing of foreign under-18 players. The world governing body announced in February that the club had breached correct conduct in 29 cases out of the 92 that they looked into.

This ruling causes a major issue for boss Maurizio Sarri’s plans as the Italian said that the side need two major signings to be able to compete with Manchester City and Liverpool in the title race.

Speaking on the issue the former Napoli boss said:

“I think that we have to buy only one, two players, otherwise it’s very difficult to improve immediately.

“So it’s not easy, because the level of the top two is very, very high.

“It’s very difficult to cover the gap at the moment; we need to work, probably we need to do something from the market.”

“I think we are a very good team, so we need only one, two players, no more.”

Even though the ban was upheld there was a minor tweak that allowed the Blues to sign players under-16 from teams in the UK during the suspension period.

The original fine of £460,000 will still have to be paid by Chelsea to FIFA, while the football governing body also hit The Football Association (FA) with a fine of £390,000. As they said the FA must “address the situation” regarding the international transfer and registration of minors.