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Chelsea potentially could be hit with a two year transfer ban for signing players under-18 illegally.
That is according to French news outlet Mediapart who report that 14 signings made by the Stamford Bridge club are under investigation by FIFA’s Integrity and Compliance unit.
Current FIFA regulations state that clubs are prohibited from signing players aged under 18 from abroad unless both player and club are based within 50 km of a national border, or the parents of a player have emigrated for non-footballing reasons.
Specifically, Chelsea have been accused in reference to the case of Bertrand Traore who was signed before his 18th birthday in 2014, with the club paying for him to attend the same Surrey school where both Victor Moses and Callum Hudson-Odoi were both pupils.
There is precedence for such a transfer ban. Both Real and Atlético Madrid have both been slapped with transfer bans in recent years for exactly the same offence of which Chelsea have been accused, namely breaching the rules on young foreign-born players.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.