Chelsea banned from the transfer market till 2011

World Football’s governing body (FIFA) has handed English club Chelsea a one-year transfer ban for their alleged role in inducing French youngster Gael Kakuta to break his contract with FC Lens. A statement by FIFA said that Chelsea would not be able to buy players or sign players on loan till January 2011. Chelsea have called the penalty “totally disproportionate” and “without precedent” and are set to launch an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). FIFA have also aksed Gael Kakuta to pay 780,000 euros (£682,000) to Lens as compensation. Chelsea must pay additional “training compensation” of 130,000 euros (£114,000) to Lens while the player has been banned from playing any competitive form of sport for four months.

FIFA’s statement read as follows –

The French club had lodged a claim with Fifa seeking compensation for breach of contract from the player and requesting also sporting sanctions to be imposed on the player and the English club for breach of contract and inducement to breach of contract.

“The DRC found that the player had indeed breached a contract signed with the French club. Equally, the DRC deemed it to be established that the English club induced the player to such breach.”

Lens president Gervais Martel was delighted with the verdict and believed that it served as a warning for other clubs trying to flex their muscle and bend rules when it came to signing players from smaller clubs.

“We expected this kind of decision. The player was under contract with us and they came and stole him away from us,” he said.

“Chelsea didn’t follow the rules. They contacted the player when he wasn’t even 16 and while he had been contracted to our training group from the age of eight.

“The financial sanction isn’t over the top given the nature of the infringement, but it’s really quite significant when it comes to not being able to recruit players.

“It’s an important message given that protecting up and coming youth players who are contracted to clubs is an issue being followed closely by Uefa president Michel Platini.”

If the situation holds and the appeal is rejected by CAS, Yuri Zhirkov, Ross Turnbull and Daniel Sturridge, who were signed this summer, will be the only new arrivals at Stamford Bridge till 2011. With the average age of the squad nearing 30, it could prove to be a really difficult period for the Blues.