Last month, Chelsea were fined £10m and handed a suspended two-window ban on registering new players after violating regulations governing payments to agents between 2009 and 2022.
The club also faced a six-point penalty, suspended until 30 June 2027, but that sanction was overturned on appeal.
Chelsea acknowledged that £47m had been paid secretly to unregistered agents and other third parties in connection with transfers from 2011 to 2018.
When Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took control of the club in 2022, the owners reported 74 alleged breaches of the Football Association’s regulations.
The penalty attracted criticism from some quarters, with people arguing that it was too mild, especially after Everton and Nottingham Forest were both docked points in 2024 for breaches of financial sustainability rules.
“Chelsea’s case concerned historical matters, so it was clearly different from financial sustainability cases,” Masters said.
“The new owners provided all the available information, and we chose to reach a settlement agreement with the club.
“That agreement was also reviewed by an independent commission. One of its responsibilities was to ensure that the punishment was not excessively lenient.
“The crucial point is that the available evidence was incomplete, and the individuals connected to those payments were no longer employed by the club, meaning we could not interview them.
“The other option would have been to pursue the matter through a disputed commission hearing. I am not convinced we would have been able to bring every charge that Chelsea eventually accepted, or prove those allegations successfully. As a result, the board did not have an obvious decision to make.
“We concluded that the settlement agreement offered the best outcome for the league. We understand that some people believe a different approach should have been taken, but we must accept that disagreement.”
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