Juve, Newcastle, Villa and Chelsea fined by UEFA for breaching financial rules

June 30 : UEFA has imposed sanctions on 14 clubs, including Juventus, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Chelsea, for breaching its financial sustainability rules for the 2025-26 season, European soccer's governing body announced on Tuesday.

UEFA said the First Chamber of its Club Financial Control Body had completed its assessment of clubs in 2025-26 European competitions and handed out sanctions covering breaches of its football earnings rule, squad cost rule and financial reporting requirements.

The football earnings rule, an evolution of UEFA's former break-even test, requires clubs to keep aggregate football-related losses within a permitted threshold over a monitoring period, with excess deficits needing to be covered by equity or owner contributions.

Juve, Newcastle, OGC Nice, Santa Clara, FC Astana and FK Partizan failed to comply with the rule, which was assessed for the first time on a three-year aggregate basis, covering the financial years ending in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Juventus and Newcastle agreed three-year settlements requiring them to meet annual targets and achieve full compliance by the end of the 2028-29 season.

Juve were fined 20 million euros ($22.84 million), of which 14 million euros is conditional, while Newcastle were fined 10 million euros ($11.42 million), with 7 million suspended pending future compliance.

Both clubs will also face restrictions on registering new players on their List A for UEFA competitions. On List A, clubs can submit a maximum of 25 players, with eight places reserved exclusively for homegrown players.

Further sanctions are possible if they fail to meet targets, ranging from stricter registration limits to exclusion from the next UEFA competition for which they qualify.

Nice and Santa Clara also breached the football earnings rule but had shown the breaches were temporary.

Nice were fined 2 million euros ($2.28 million), with 1.7 million conditional, while Santa Clara were fined 1 million euros ($1.14 million), including 850,000 suspended.

Astana and Partizan were fined 100,000 euros and 200,000 euros respectively for minor breaches.

SQUAD COST RULE

UEFA also sanctioned nine clubs for breaching its squad cost rule, which limits spending on player and coach wages, transfers and agent fees to 70 per cent of club revenue and profit on player sales.

Villa, Chelsea, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Nice, RC Strasbourg, AEK Athens, Fiorentina and Fenerbahce all reported squad cost ratios above the 70 per cent limit for the 2025 calendar year.

Strasbourg received the largest squad cost fine at 25 million euros ($28.55 million), of which 12 million is conditional. Aston Villa were fined 22.5 million euros, including 15 million suspended.

UEFA said both clubs had committed significant breaches and would face restrictions on registering new players for the 2026-27 UEFA club competition season.

Fenerbahce were fined 7 million euros, Fiorentina 6 million, Chelsea and Newcastle 3 million each, Nottingham Forest 2.5 million, AEK Athens 500,000 and Nice 450,000.

Chelsea's fine includes 2 million euros suspended.

UEFA said Chelsea and Villa had already been sanctioned in the previous season but had shown an improving trend in their squad cost ratios.

Bologna and Napoli also reported squad cost ratios above 70 per cent but were not fined because their deviations were offset by football earnings surpluses.

UEFA also fined FK Vardar Skopje 250,000 euros for submitting incomplete financial information. The club faces possible exclusion from future UEFA competition if it repeats the offence within three seasons.

($1 = 0.8756 euros)