Chelsea, Aston Villa and Barcelona have been fined by Uefa for breaking financial rules. Chelsea have been hit with a €31m (£27m) fine, with a potential further €60m looming over the next four years if they fail to comply with regulations again. They also face doubts over whether they will be able to register new signings in European competitions over the next two seasons.
Villa have been fined a total of €11m with a further €15m suspended for the next three years. Barcelona have been fined €15m and are also at risk of further conditional penalties.
Chelsea’s punishment leaves them under pressure to make sales this summer before their return to the Champions League. Uefa’s judgment included the detail that Chelsea would be forbidden from including new players in their squad for Europe next season and in 2026-27 unless they can show they have generated a cost saving with sale of players against acquisitions.
Chelsea have bought Liam Delap for £30m and João Pedro in a deal worth up to £60m. They have agreed a deal to sign the Borussia Dortmund winger Jamie Gittens and will add Palmeiras’s Estêvão Willian to their squad after the Club World Cup. Chelsea were already looking to make sales and are open to offers for Noni Madueke and Christopher Nkunku. A number of others, including João Félix and Raheem Sterling, have no future at the club. Sterling has two years left on a contract worth £325,000 a week.
Chelsea and Villa breached Uefa’s football earnings and squad-cost rules (SCR), the latter of which limits clubs operating in European competition to spending 80% of their revenue on player costs. Villa face being fined €5m for every year they breach financial rules. A new three-year cycle started in 2024-25.
Villa are confident they can absorb the fine and strengthen Unai Emery’s squad while agreeing to move in line with SCR. Villa and Uefa are understood to have agreed a “glide path” to meet their targets. Villa, who are also confident of avoiding a possible points deduction from the Premier League after moving to sell their women’s team to comply with financial rules, are adamant they do not need to sell key players.
The future of Emiliano Martínez, however, is uncertain, and while Aston Villa are yet to receive a bid for the Argentina goalkeeper, they are braced for further interest in the 32-year-old, who is under contract until 2029., Chelsea, Manchester United and Atlético Madrid, are thought to hold an interest in the World Cup-winner.
Reducing the wage bill is a priority for Villa. YesterdayOn Friday, the club confirmed they have terminated the contract of Philippe Coutinho, who has signed permanently for Vasco de Gama, his boyhood club. Villa want to trim the squad and offload fringe players, with Kaine Kesler-Hayden joining Coventry in a £3.5m deal and Emiliano Buendia, Louie Barry and Alex Moreno also poised to leave. Lyon (€12.5m), Besiktas (€900,000) Panathinaikos (€400,000) and Hajduk Split (€300,000) have also been sanctioned by Uefa.
