The club will instead pay a £10m fine and serve a suspended two-window registration ban. The FA had originally charged Chelsea with 74 breaches of Rule E1.2 relating to payments made to unregistered agents and intermediaries between 2011 and 2018, all of which the club admitted before a hearing.
An independent regulatory commission had initially imposed the six-point deduction, suspended until 30 June 2027, alongside the £10m fine. Chelsea appealed against the points penalty specifically, and the Appeal Board granted that appeal, replacing it with a ban covering two complete, consecutive transfer windows, itself suspended until the same date.
The fine was not open to appeal and will be directed in full toward grassroots football. The FA said it is continuing to investigate potential individual misconduct arising from the case.
The ruling closes out the last of several regulatory processes triggered after Chelsea's current ownership group, BlueCo, voluntarily self-reported historic rule breaches on taking over the club from Roman Abramovich in 2022, having identified the irregularities during due diligence on the takeover.
The club had already settled separately with the Premier League and UEFA over the same underlying conduct: the Premier League fined Chelsea £10m in March and imposed its own suspended transfer ban after the club admitted to making £47m in undisclosed payments to unregistered agents and third parties across the same period, affecting transfers including Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto'o, Willian, Ramires, David Luiz, André Schürrle and Nemanja Matić — though none of the players themselves have been accused of any wrongdoing.
That £10m fine, initially set at £20m before being halved in recognition of Chelsea's self-reporting and cooperation, exceeded the £5.5m fine handed to West Ham in 2007 over their signings of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez. Investigators also concluded that Chelsea would not have breached the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability rules during the relevant seasons even had the payments been properly registered.
Chelsea separately received a nine-month academy transfer ban and a £750,000 fine over irregularities in the registration of academy players between 2019 and 2022.
In a statement, the club said: "As previously announced, settlement agreements have been entered into with UEFA and the Premier League concerning the same self-reported regulatory matters and topics that have been addressed before. The club is pleased to confirm that, now the FA process has concluded, this brings all regulatory proceedings against the club to a close. We are grateful to UEFA, the Premier League and the FA for their engagement with the club throughout these processes."
The FA, in its own statement, confirmed: "A financial sanction of £10m and a suspended two-window registration ban have been imposed on Chelsea FC for breaches of the Football Association Football Agent Regulations, Regulations on Working with Intermediaries and Third Party Investment in Players Regulations."