- Nate Mayor
Chelsea's Transfer Ban Reduced: What This Means For The January Transfer Window
Updated: Oct 2, 2020
Last February Chelsea FC was sentenced to a two-window transfer ban (Summer 2019 and January 2020). Chelsea violated Article 19 and 19b of the Regulation on the Transfers and Status of Players. This is not an uncommon occurrence in soccer, as major clubs often break the rules in order to sign young superstars. For instance, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, and FC Barcelona have all gone through similar bans. Essentially, Chelsea did not abide by the rule for completing the transfer of minors on an alleged 29 occasions over the past 5 or so years. As a result, they were given the typical two window ban.
However, much like Real Madrid did in 2016, Chelsea appealed their ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport this fall in the hopes of following in Madrid's footsteps and getting the ban reduced to just the one window. Luckily for the club and Chelsea fans like myself, last week the Court ruled in favor of Chelsea, reducing the ban to just one window, allowing Chelsea to buy players this January.
This decision has created widespread speculation for the January transfer window as Chelsea's owner has come out and said that he is allocating Manager Frank Lampard a transfer budget of a reported between 150 and 250 million pounds just for the January window to make up for the lost time in the summer. This budget is sure to lead to many rumors and bidding wars in January, setting us up for one of the most exciting January transfer windows to date. Chelsea will look to add much-needed depth to their squad as they head into one of the busiest parts of the season, while also buying stars that will light up Stamford Bridge for years to come.
Look for more blog posts from me in the coming days about Chelsea's January transfer window targets, as well as transfer updates and reactions throughout January.