Chelsea will secure a place in Europe if they win the Carabao Cup on Sunday. However, if they are found guilty of breaking FFP rules, they’d need to accept a ban from European football.
Chelsea’s FFP Rules
Chelsea could win their first trophy under Mauricio Pochettino and Todd Boehly if they beat Liverpool in the 2024 Carabao Cup on Sunday.
While in addition to lifting the cup, they would also secure a place in the Europa Conference League qualifying rounds.
However, this all sounds great on paper, but it could also bring new FFP challenges for Chelsea as they must comply with UEFA’s club licensing and financial sustainability regulations (FSR).
With Chelsea facing potential punishment for breaking FFP rules, they may need to accept a European ban to stay in line with regulations.
In 2019, AC Milan agreed a one-year ban for breaching UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, which suggests Chelsea may have to go down a similar route.
Why would Chelsea need to accept a one-year ban?
Current FFP rules state that clubs that are not in a European competition can lose up to £105m over a three-year period. Teams that are in Europe can only lose up to £68.5m
Due to Boehly spending £1bn since taking over Chelsea in 2022, this would put the Blues in serious bother of this regulation. Taking the one-year European ban would help them significantly.
Chelsea will also need to offload players before the end of June 30th to be able to comply with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules and ensure they are not sanctioned.
To add their woes, the London side are also facing punishment for illegal payments made by previous owner Roman Abramovich.
Further verdict
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire told The Athletic: “It could be in Chelsea’s interests to do the same as Milan,”
“We’re moving into the realms of three-dimensional chess here, which some clubs are capable of playing.
“By the time you pay the players’ bonuses for qualifying for the competition, transport, accommodation and other costs, you’re only making a small amount of money from the Conference League.
“You’ll struggle to get a decent number of fans to attend Stamford Bridge if the opposition is modest. That isn’t a criticism of them. It’s modern-day economics.
“If they are exceeding the UEFA limits, the question becomes: ‘Do we want to go and play in the Conference League next season?’. Because they won’t make any money from it.”
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