Times: Premier League investigation of Abu-era finance, Chelsea

Live broadcast on August 12 News The Times learned that the Premier League investigated Chelsea’s deal in the Abu era, including a review of paying millions of pounds to secret offshore companies. Before the investigation, Chelsea’s new boss reported to the Football Association, the Premier League and UEFA some financial transactions they found during the acquisition process from 2012 to 2019. In addition to the payments made to offshore companies, at least one payment made to the players’ families was also reviewed. Although any violation occurred under the previous ownership, the club may face sanctions from the Premier League, such as huge fines and points deduction. After the club’s new boss reported an improper deal, the Premier League began an investigation, which is still in progress. Chelsea has reached a 10 million-euro settlement agreement with the European Union to make up for the violation of the FFP rules of fiscal fair competition. UEFA said that the reason for the fine was that the previous owners of the club might have incomplete financial reports. Sources familiar with the case said it had been confirmed that Chelsea had paid about six offshore companies before, which were believed to be related to the transfer of players. The seven-digit amount does not seem to have been registered in the club’s annual financial reports submitted to the Football Association, the Premier League and Uefa. Some offshore companies were traced to football brokers and intermediaries, but sources familiar with the case said it was impossible to determine who was behind other companies. It is believed that some of these transactions are related to Russia. The investigation of the Premier League may involve the problems of Bruce Barker, the former chairman of Chelsea, and Marina granovskaya, the director, who is responsible for managing the club in the second half of Abramovich. Glanov skaya is a Russian-Canadian businesswoman who was responsible for Chelsea’s transfer in the second half of the Abu era. When the New York Times asked her about her attitude towards the FFP investigation, she refused to respond, “I will not make any comments on this, really not.” In June 2022, The Times reported that Chelsea’s new owners deducted 0.1 billion pounds from the final purchase price because they were worried that they might inherit “unpredictable debts”. Uefa’s club financial control agency only considered the accounts of 2018 and 2019, because it had a five-year statute of limitations, but there was no such time limit in the Premier League. UEFA said that the settlement agreement with Chelsea would draw a clear line on financial violations and take into account the regulations that violations would only be dealt with within the past five years. In last May, the due diligence conducted by Todd-Burleigh and the lawyers and accountants of Qinghu capital leading the consortium in preparation for the acquisition found that many unusual financial transactions occurred between 2012 and 2019. Some of these payments were paid to offshore companies and did not seem to be properly recorded in the accounts submitted to the Football Association, the Premier League and Uefa. Some of these companies seem to have connections with football brokers, while others have no way of knowing who is the owner. It also includes paying at least one player’s family, which may put the club and football authorities in trouble, because all clubs are obliged to register their accounts and all transactions accurately every year. They also decided to break completely with the era of Abramovich and show the football authorities that this is a brand new operation. Therefore, it is understood that the role plans of Buck and grafoskaya in the club have been changed at least in the short term, and they both left Chelsea within two weeks. Due to its limitation of action, UEFA could not date back to 2017, but it found that there were acts violating its financial fairness regulations, and according to the usual practices of clubs violating these regulations, agreed to reach a settlement with a fine of 10 million euros. The investigation of the Premier League is more complicated because it has no such time limit and the potential violations since 2012 may be under its jurisdiction. Once the investigation is completed, the first step is to decide whether to file charges, and then it will be officially announced. Chelsea’s boss will have to decide how to proceed, which will affect the schedule of results. Manchester City faces 115 charges of violating Premier League financial rules, and legal experts say the whole process may take two years or more to complete. If Chelsea were accused and admitted to violating financial rules under the leadership of the former boss, the process would be much faster. (eagle)