Chelsea FC face new questions over funding from Abramovich

Chelsea FC face fresh questions over how its former owner Roman Abramovich funded the club’s success, after leaked files revealed a string of secret payments that may have breached strict football rules, including those on “financial fair play”.

- Rob Davies , Simon Lock

Experts said the transactions, uncovered through a joint investigation by the Guardian and international partners, could lead to the Premier League imposing punishments on Chelsea, such as a deduction of points.

The files reveal a series of payments worth tens of millions of pounds over a decade, routed through offshore vehicles belonging to Abramovich. The transactions in question appear to have been for Chelsea’s benefit, raising questions about whether they were declared in accounts submitted to football’s governing bodies.

Beneficiaries appear to include the agent of the star player Eden Hazard, an associate of the title-winning manager Antonio Conte and Chelsea FC officials. Other payments appear to have been connected to the purchase of the players Willian and Samuel Eto’o.

The payments have come to light thanks to an international investigation known as Cyprus Confidential, a cache of 3.6m offshore records leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Germany’s Paper Trail Media, which shared access with the Guardian, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and other media.

Chelsea’s finances are already being examined by the Premier League in an investigation that runs from 2012 to 2019, after the west London club’s new ownership regime voluntarily reported that “incomplete financial information” had been submitted during Abramovich’s tenure.

The Football Association confirmed to the Guardian that it is also investigating Chelsea while Uefa, the governing body of European football, has already fined the club £8.6m over the admission, although its powers are limited because it can only look at evidence going back three years.