Chelsea face TWO YEAR transfer ban for Traore deal; Arsenal helped alert authorities to alleged rules breach

CHELSEA have been threatened with a two YEAR transfer ban over their recruitment of foreign kids.

And the Blues are set to be hit savagely over a player they SOLD 18 months ago.

Fifa’s long-standing investigation into the signings of 19 youngsters by the Stamford Bridge outfit is still on-going.

But the latest batch of documents published as part of the Football Leaks release suggests the Blues could be hit by the heaviest punishment yet on record.

Spanish giants Real Madrid, Atletico and Barcelona have all had transfer bans of up to one year for illegally recruiting youngsters from across the world.

According to the documents, Fifa want to ban Chelsea from making any signings for FOUR transfer windows, meaning no recruits for two whole seasons.

Chelsea are also facing a fine of £380,000 after being accused of signing 14 minors illegally.

The stand-out case being investigated by Fifa is of Burkina Faso attacking midfielder Bertrand Traore, sold by Chelsea to Lyon for £8.8m - with a buy-back option - in July 2017.

It is alleged that Traore was first signed as a schoolboy, when he was just 16, although Chelsea have always denied he was on their books.

According to the latest claims, Chelsea confirmed that they agreed to pay Traore’s mother £154,000 to take him from Burkina Faso Premier League club AJEB in April 2011, with £13,000 going to the club.

It is against Fifa rules to transport players across borders - outside the EU - when they are under 18.

Traore spent the next two years living in Wimbledon with his mother and brother while attending the £20,000 per year private school Whitgift - where former Blues defender Colin Pates is the head of football - for two years.

The club insisted Traore was never signed and was only “on trial”.

Indeed, when returning boss Jose Mourinho took Traore on their pre-season tour to the Far East in 2014, which saw the teenager score in games in Malaysia and Indonesia, club officials tried to persuade the travelling media not to report on him.

On January 1 2014, Chelsea announced Traore, three months past his 18th birthday, had signed a four and a half year deal, although he was not eligible for a work permit.

But while the club publicly stuck with its argument that Traore had only been on trial and not played any official matches before his 18th birthday, the Arsenal club website, in a standard match report, revealed he had featured against their under-18 side in 2011.

Fifa found that Traore had played a total of 25 games for Chelsea at youth and senior level before he was registered with the FA.

The club, it is claimed, even sent an email to Wembley chiefs in 2011 confirming they had acquired the option on Traore from his mother and raising the “potential of a Third Party Ownership” issue.

Fifa, which had initially closed its investigation in November 2013, re-opened it two years later.

According to France-based MediaPart, one of the companies publishing the Football Leaks information, Fifa’s investigation arm decided Chelsea “paid for the player to go to an English school while he was under-age and incited him to be transferred to England and to be paid for it”.

The Fifa investigators, who believed Chelsea had “deliberately deceived” their global transfer matching system, added the club had “helped and facilitated the move for his mother and brother” and recommended Chelsea be charged with “illegal international transfer of a minor for money”.

Despite finally landing Traore, Chelsea did not get him a work permit for another 17 months, following a loan spell at Vitesse Arnhem.

He then featured 16 times for Chelsea, scoring four goals, in the 2015-16 season but spent the following campaign on loan at Ajax before his full move to Lyons, where he has scored 23 goals in 57 appearances.

The latest Football Leaks tranche also suggest midfielder N’Golo Kante rejected an offer from the club to pay part of his £5m net wages through an image rights deal involving a company based in Jersey.

Kante is said to have agreed to set up the company, which would have received 20 per cent of his salary following his move from Leicester.

That would have brought a substantial tax saving  but Kante changed his mind with his personal tax advisor explaining to the club: “N’Golo is increasingly concerned that this could be called into question by the tax authorities.

“He does not want to take any risks. He just wants a normal salary.”

According to the document, a compromise was found which saw the image rights element paid into a British company which declared the earnings and paid tax as required.

Fifa, understood to still be deciding on their next step, declined to comment while a Chelsea spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation about confidential contracts or player issues.”