The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has announced that Chelsea's transfer ban handed to them by Fifa has been cut in half following an appeal.
The Blues were handed the two-window ban by Fifa back in February after the governing body judged that they had broken regulations over the signing of minors from overseas.
Chelsea denied any wrongdoing and launched an appeal to CAS, which was heard on November 20.
The club served the first window of their transfer ban over the summer and were looking to get their ban reduced so that they could sign new players in January.
They will now be permitted to do so after CAS confirmed, via a statement on their website, that the ban has been cut in half.
CAS's statement read: "A CAS arbitration procedure was initiated in June 2019, following the receipt of CFC’s appeal, and conducted by a Sole Arbitrator (Prof. Massimo Coccia (Italy)). The club did not file any application for provisional measures but requested that a final decision be rendered before the end of 2019. A hearing was held at the CAS headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 20 November 2019.
"The Sole Arbitrator found that CFC did violate Articles 19.1 (related to the international transfer of minors) and 19.3 (related to the first registration of minors) of the RSTP, but for a significantly smaller number of players (about 1/3 of the violations found by FIFA). In addition, the violations of other RSTP rules were found to be less serious than those attributed to Chelsea FC by FIFA.
"Accordingly, the Sole Arbitrator reduced the sanction to one single transfer ban (which Chelsea FC already served during the 2019 summer registration period), and halved the monetary sanction. In view of the upcoming transfer window, the Sole Arbitrator issued his decision without the grounds. The reasoned award is being prepared and is expected to be notified to the parties in early 2020."
More to follow...
