The West London club have not been punished too harshly despite their dealings in the transfer window
The Premier League’s decision to fine Chelsea £10m for making £47.5m in secret transfer payments has been condemned as “way too generous” by one of the club’s former executives.
Christian Purslow served as head of commercial activities at Chelsea between 2014 and 2017, placing him at Stamford Bridge for a significant portion of the timeframe covered by the breaches. He claims that his role gave him no sight of the payments, but said he was “shocked to see the scale of activity” when the findings were published.
His verdict on the punishment was: “I think this is the most serious thing to break in the Premier League for a long time,” he told The Football Boardroom podcast. “The level of mitigation that has been applied here is way too generous, and in my opinion very inconsistent with previous regulatory cases and sanctions.”
What makes Purslow’s criticism particularly pointed is his wider experience of football governance. A former managing director of Liverpool and chief executive of Aston Villa, he has seen the inside of Premier League clubs from multiple angles, and he believes the Chelsea ruling sits uncomfortably alongside previous cases.
Everton and Nottingham Forest both received points deductions for Profit and Sustainability Rule breaches in recent years.
The Premier League’s own language in those cases was very clear: “A financial penalty for a club that enjoys the support of a wealthy owner is not a sufficient penalty.” Points deductions, the governing body argued at the time, were necessary to “vindicate compliant clubs” and protect “the integrity of the sport.”
Chelsea’s breaches were categorised in the ruling itself as “obvious and deliberate”, involving “deception and concealment in relation to financial matters”, language significantly more damning than that applied to Everton or Forest.
Yet while those clubs suffered sporting punishment, Chelsea escaped with a fine and a suspended transfer ban.
“This is essentially a litany of offences related to how you conduct transfer business, so a transfer ban makes sense,” Purslow said. “But to see that ban suspended in full, again, seems extremely lenient. That must really rankle with clubs like Everton and Forest who I don’t think have had much credit in the past where they have co-operated.”
Sporting advantage gained
The mitigation accepted by the panel centred on the fact that the breaches occurred under former owner Roman Abramovich, with new owners BlueCo receiving credit for voluntary disclosures and what was described as “exceptional co-operation.” Chelsea said the club had “treated these matters with the utmost seriousness, providing full cooperation to all relevant regulators.”
Purslow did not accept that as sufficient justification, particularly given the players Chelsea were able to sign during the period, Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto’o, Willian, Ramires, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic among them, as the club won two Premier League titles and the Champions League between 2011 and 2018.
“Sporting sanctions first came into the frame as an acknowledgement that sometimes punishing with a fine just didn’t fit the crime,” he said. “When football clubs had gained meaningful football advantage, you needed to sanction with sporting penalty to compensate. It is blindingly obvious that sporting benefits were attained through this transfer activity.”
The £10m fine is the largest the Premier League has ever handed down. Whether it is large enough — and whether the absence of a sporting sanction can be justified — is a question that will not be going away.
