Premier League 2025/26 Thread

[AKCJ]

5 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Chelsea fvcking hell

 

Absolute pittance of a fine as well. 

 

Football is a joke these days. 

0.14% of Todd Boehly's net worth.

 

I'm sure he's had more expensive nights out.

[Trumpet]

37 minutes ago, Lionator said:

Meanwhile Villa continue to hurtle down the table, having to sell key players every transfer window to avoid breaking the rules, just like Newcastle and Leicester previously. 

[Leicesterpool]

37 minutes ago, Lionator said:

Meanwhile Villa continue to hurtle down the table, having to sell key players every transfer window to avoid breaking the rules, just like Newcastle and Leicester previously. 

Premier league and Uefa way of keeping the 'rift raff" out the top four as such. Without PSR more than likely Villa and Newcastle would probably causing more problems with the top. Maybe even challenging for the title. It becomes more obvious ever year of the corruption in the premier league and they don't even disguise it no more.  

[FrankieADZ]

the rule makers are just a massive farce now imo

one rule for one one rule for another

like whats the point

[Fear Of The Fox]

We're all complaining but we don't take any action. Where's a collective boycott then for all this corruption? Fans are still going to the stadiums paying shockingly high amounts for everything. Feeding the monster week in week out. 

I'm happy I've decided to boycott the sport 2 years ago. The sport must return to its roots and the fans. Ownership changes must be implemented also with fans having the majority of shares through organised trusts. 

[suffolk fox]

Premier league showing it's corruption again re big 6 and Chelsea.  A 10.6 million fine for them is peanuts plus a suspended punishment absolute joke.

Yet, they want to hammer us.  Whole thing stinks.

[Langston]

2 hours ago, Lionator said:

Meanwhile Villa continue to hurtle down the table, having to sell key players every transfer window to avoid breaking the rules, just like Newcastle and Leicester previously. 

 

I know the sentiment behind this but Villa are hardly "hurtling" are they!!!!

[Foxdiamond]

2 hours ago, Bert said:

Chelsea with a fine and a suspended transfer ban  

What a surprise. Not even a proper slap on the wrist.

[David Hankey]

Why haven't they got a points deduction?

[Foxdiamond]

5 minutes ago, David Hankey said:

Why haven't they got a points deduction?

Because they cooperated. One of those dodgy plea bargains where punishment does not fit the crime? 

[urban.spaceman]

£23m of illegal payments for players that helped Chelsea win 2 Premier League titles, 2 FA Cups, a League Cup, a Europa League and a Champions League over that 7 year period.

 

£23m of illegal spending that lead to them "earning" £250m+ in prize money.

 

No investigation until Chelsea's new owners bothered to tell them about it.

 

Eventually get given a player registration ban from English clubs for 9 months, a 1 year first team transfer ban SUSPENDED for 2 years, and a paltry £10m fine. 

 

For seven years worth of rule breaking. 

 

Which lead to them winning every domestic and European trophy at least once and profiting 10 times what they had illegally spent. 

 

This sport is broken. The Premier League is corrupt. 

[Foxdiamond]

2 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

£23m of illegal payments for players that helped Chelsea win 2 Premier League titles, 2 FA Cups, a League Cup, a Europa League and a Champions League over that 7 year period.

 

£23m of illegal spending that lead to them "earning" £250m+ in prize money.

 

No investigation until Chelsea's new owners bothered to tell them about it.

 

Eventually get given a player registration ban from English clubs for 9 months, a 1 year first team transfer ban SUSPENDED for 2 years, and a paltry £10m fine. 

 

For seven years worth of rule breaking. 

 

Which lead to them winning every domestic and European trophy at least once and profiting 10 times what they had illegally spent. 

 

This sport is broken. The Premier League is corrupt. 

If we weren't all captivated by the game in our childhood I think we could happily ditch even a casual interest in the greedy bent elite levels of football 

[Corky]

The section about Chelsea's owners alerting the League to discrepancies is alarming. Nothing was being done until the threat of the regulator was brought in. Didn't Everton fully co-operate, too?

 

Clubs could do what they wanted until the Premier League was called out. Now they are being selective in how far they go to punish. Pathetic.

[StanSP]

Would love to know the percentage of route one goals this season in PL. 

 

Brentford just scored one and made it look very easy doing so. 

[urban.spaceman]

3 hours ago, Foxdiamond said:

If we weren't all captivated by the game in our childhood I think we could happily ditch even a casual interest in the greedy bent elite levels of football 

If we go down I'll try and watch the World Cup but after that I think I'm done with the sport for a while. In its current form it is too broken and revolting to enjoy. 

[RowlattsFox]

Great touch and finish 

[StanSP]

Wolves could win this 

[Lionator]

Wolves get a winner here and I think they stay up. 

[Arkie Bennett]

<checking if Wolves can catch Forest and Spurs>

[Super_horns]

Wolves certainly showing some fight but Brentford will be disappointed.

[fox_up_north]

Premier League need their feet holding to the fire. Can you imagine if UEFA voided the champions league they won? 

[davieG]

https://www.themag.co.uk/2026/03/jamaal-lascelles-watching-on-as-leicester-city-disaster-unfolds-whilst-chelsea-untouchable/

 

The independent voice of Newcastle United since 1988

Leicester City fans will no doubt have shaken their heads in disbelief, like the rest of us, the total absence of any real punishment for Chelsea. Monday brought news of how Chelsea had cheated their way to success in the Premier League, with tens of millions of secret payments made over a number of years, to give them an unfair advantage. Yet not a single point deducted from them in punishment, only a fine which is meaningless, with not even a first team transfer ban, just a suspended one.

Yet two days after the announcement that Jamaal Lascelles had joined the Foxes, Leicester City announced they had been docked six points due to PSR breaches.

If they had just been let off breaking the rules, like Chelsea, with no points deduction, Leicester City would actually be now four points clear of the drop.

Instead, Leicester City are one of the clear favourites for relegation to the third tier and if that does happen, will their slide go on further to who knows where…

Meanwhile, Chelsea are allowed to simply carry on unpunished. Breaking the rules, finding endless accountancy loopholes to exploit, doing simply as they want.

They are so entitled and believe they can do whatever they like, they even believe there is nothing wrong with seeing the centre circle as their territory ahead of a match, surrounding the referee who is standing on the centre spot, for a pre-match huddle.

We all laugh at it but this is a perfect visible representation of how Chelsea see themselves, a club that believes it doesn’t need to follow the normal rules and conventions that the rest understand they have to live by.

[when_you're_smiling]

22 hours ago, Corky said:

The section about Chelsea's owners alerting the League to discrepancies is alarming. Nothing was being done until the threat of the regulator was brought in. Didn't Everton fully co-operate, too?

 

Clubs could do what they wanted until the Premier League was called out. Now they are being selective in how far they go to punish. Pathetic.

Also, they knew this was coming. Apparently when he sold it Abrhamovic basically put in a £150m discount so the new owners could pay the fines for the old regime’s crimes. And then they get praise for being co-operative. Load of bollocks.

[purpleronnie]

Their success is now tainted forever, how can you call them former premier league champions when they effectively cheated, players who probably wouldn't have gone that helped them win the title.

[davieG]

BBC

 

Dan Roan

Sports editor

On page six of its 'sanction agreement, external' on Chelsea's catalogue of secret payments between 2011 and 2018, the Premier League lays out what factors it considered when deciding on a punishment for the years of rule-breaking over transfers.

The need "to punish the club and to vindicate those clubs who have complied with the relevant rules" is referenced. Along with "the importance of deterring breaches" and "the need to preserve public confidence in the fairness of the competition."

But has that been achieved?

The Premier League handed Chelsea a record £10m fine. A one-year transfer ban was suspended. But by avoiding a sporting sanction such as a points deduction, has the league failed to properly punish one of English football's most serious cheating scandals?

After all, the Premier League accepts that this case involved "not only obvious and deliberate breaches of the rules but... deception and concealment in relation to financial matters". And that it "occurred with the knowledge and approval of certain senior former officers and/or directors".

Crucially, the wrongdoing had a material sporting impact, not only on Chelsea but also some of their rivals.

The 36 payments totalling more than £47m over eight years involved the signings of some of the most influential players in the club's modern history.

Players such as Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto'o, Willian and David Luiz. Stars who helped Chelsea to become one of world football's most successful clubs during that period, when eight major trophies were won.

And while there is no suggestion that any of the players knew of the wrongdoing, it is of course possible that they could all have played for other clubs and helped them to win those trophies instead, were it not for the undisclosed payments from third-parties linked to former owner Roman Abramovich to unlicensed agents and other individuals.

• How Chelsea signed a star team with hidden payments

   

  • Published
    1 day ago

The signings named in the report:

• Ramires - £17m from Benfica in August 2010

• Luiz - £21.3m from Benfica in February 2011

• Hazard - £32m from Lille in June 2012

• Schurrle - £18m from Bayer Leverkusen in June 2013

• Eto'o - free transfer from Anzhi Makhachkala in August 2013

• Willian - £30m from Anzhi Makhachkala in August 2013

• Matic - £21m from Benfica in January 2014

The Premier League says it applied leniency on the grounds that Chelsea's new Clearlake ownership self-reported rule-breaches committed under a previous era, and that the current hierarchy displayed "exceptional" levels of co-operation. It has also made clear that the secret payments did not mean profit and sustainability rules limiting losses would have been broken.

"It is worth remembering that... this sanction is because of activities that happened under the previous Chelsea regime," Richard Monks, the chief executive of the Independent Football Regulator, told the BBC on Tuesday.

"It's not the current owners or executive group. What we'll be doing is working with the Premier League to understand if there's anybody involved in that case still involved in football, and if necessary we can investigate if we thought they were unsuitable to continue to be in football."

For those former Chelsea executives who have since left the game, that will be of little concern. And some rivals undoubtedly feel that for a club with a squad worth £1.5bn - the most expensively assembled in football history - a £10m fine is insufficient.

And while the current ownership was in no way to blame for the wrongdoing, they have arguably benefited from the considerable success achieved during the Abramovich era, which has only increased the value of their asset.

"Galling" is how one former senior Manchester United executive - who was at Old Trafford during that period - described the Chelsea situation to BBC Sport. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they claimed that "United lost out on players, Hazard most prominently [in 2012], due to their actions."

They added: "I have sympathy for the change of ownership point, but it's hardly a deterrent if you can sell before you get caught... some actual transfer ban would have been appropriate."

Honours in the period covered by the report:

Premier League winners: 2014-15 and 2016-17

FA Cup winners: 2011-12, 2017-18

League Cup winners: 2014-15

Champions League winners: 2011-12

Europa League winners: 2012-13, 2018-19

Chelsea were handed a nine-month academy transfer ban and a £750,000 fine over the registration of academy players between 2019 and 2022.

But compare this case with Everton and Nottingham Forest in 2024, when both clubs received points deductions for PSR breaches that appear much less serious.

And what does it say about the effectiveness of the Premier League's financial monitoring that it admits that without Chelsea's voluntary disclosures, a number of the rule breaches may never have come to its attention?

So what relevance, if any, does all this have on the league's other major disciplinary case?

Fifteen months after the end of an independent commission hearing into more than 100 alleged breaches of financial rules by Manchester City, the club is still waiting to discover its fate.

Unlike Chelsea, City deny wrongdoing and are contesting the case. And unlike at Stamford Bridge, there has been no change of ownership at the Etihad to provide mitigation.

But City fans will surely be encouraged that the Premier League board did not appear to even consider a points deduction in the case of Chelsea, despite the "deception and concealment". Indeed, it referred to a two-window transfer ban as an "appropriate" punishment, had the club not self-reported and co-operated.

In July 2023, Uefa fined the club £8m over the same case. And the FA is expected to take similar action when it announces the conclusion of its disciplinary process into the affair in the coming weeks.

But there are clear signs that Chelsea feared it could have been worse. In 2024, it was revealed that owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali held back £150m of their purchase price for the club to cover potential fines relating to the Abramovich era. So far this episode has cost the club about £18m.

Some of their rivals may feel that the cost to them may have been greater, in the form of trophies and prize money they could potentially have won. And also to the integrity and credibility of a competition that relies on everyone following the rules.

There is one other significant subplot that is emerging. Chelsea's punishment relates to rule breaches in the 2010s. The Manchester City case also covers this period. Between them the two clubs won six Premier Leagues in that decade.

What do these cases say about the football - and the titles won - in that era?

Only time will tell as all eyes again fall on the City case verdict.