Chelsea Football Club have been accused of signing 25 foreign players under the age of 18 and if these charges are proved right then the London based club might very well be facing a transfer ban.
Last September Fifa announced that it would be looking into alleged breaches at Chelsea regarding the recruitment of youth players from overseas. And now after an initial investigation, the Blues have been accused of such wrongdoings.
Chelsea have now become the first team in England to face such an action and after the initial investigation, the matter is now in the hands of FIFA’s governing body’s disciplinary committee, which has the power to impose sanctions.
Excerpts from a report in the Guardian: “The initial investigation into Chelsea was carried out by the compliance unit of Fifa’s Transfer Matching System (TMS) and it is believed it was first alerted by the case of Bertrand Traoré, the Burkina Faso forward. He was signed to professional terms by Chelsea on 1 January 2014, the day the transfer window opened after his 18th birthday, but pictures would emerge of him playing for the club against Arsenal in a “non-competitive” game on 23 October 2011, when he was 16. The pictures came to Fifa’s attention in January 2016.”
Chelsea could very well be heading down the lines of Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid who were all accused of signing minor players and eventually slapped with transfer market bans.
