Chelsea blast FIFA for treating them 'entirely differently to Man City' over transfer breaches
December 6, 2019 17:46 MYT
Chelsea have hit out at FIFA for treating them "entirely differently to Manchester City" over transfer breaches after the London club had their registration ban halved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The Premier League side were banned from registering new players for two successive transfer windows by FIFA in February, a punishment handed down for breaching rules related to acquiring and registering players under the age of 18.
An appeal to FIFA had been partially upheld, allowing them to sign players 16 or younger, but Friday's announcement means they will now be able to buy reinforcements for their senior team in January.
Chelsea have since taken the opportunity to lambast FIFA's treatment of them, convinced they were dealt a crueller hand than Manchester City, who avoided a transfer ban in August despite the world's governing body finding them to have breached rules on under-18 signings.
A Chelsea statement read: "Chelsea is grateful to the CAS for the diligent approach that it gave this matter. The club has not yet received the written reasons for CAS's decision but wishes to make the following clear: The approach taken by FIFA to this case has been deeply unsatisfactory, not least as FIFA chose to treat Chelsea entirely differently to Manchester City for reasons that make absolutely no sense to Chelsea."
The other five players in question were only "deemed" by FIFA to have been registered prior to a registration application being made, with CAS ruling the world's governing body is not permitted to make judgements based on "deemed registrations".
However, Chelsea denied wrongdoing when FIFA initially charged them for breaches involving 27 players.