EmailChelsea have been banned from signing any new players until 2011, after Fifa accused them of illegally inducing a French youth-team player to join the club in 2007.
Fifa's dispute resolution chamber today released a statement fining Gaël Kakuta €780,000 following a complaint from FC Lens and finding Chelsea "jointly and severally liable".
"A restriction of four months on his eligibility to play in official matches is imposed on the player Gaël Kakuta while the club FC Chelsea is banned from registering any new players, either nationally or internationally, for the two next entire and consecutive registration periods following the notification of the present decision," the DRC statement said. "Furthermore, the club, FC Chelsea, has to pay to RC Lens training compensation in the amount of €130,000."
Tonight, the London club issued a statement which read: "Chelsea will mount the strongest appeal possible following the decision. The sanctions are without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence and the financial penalty imposed. We cannot comment further until we receive the full written rationale for this extraordinarily arbitrary decision."
The 18-year-old Kakuta was voted the scholar of the year by Chelsea's academy staff in 2008, ending the season as top scorer after playing out wide or as an attacking midfielder.
But his season was cut short last year by injury, with a broken ankle and hamstring problems restricting him to just five appearances. He had just been named in Chelsea's Champions League squad but, as part of Fifa's ruling, is now banned from playing any games for four months.
Speaking to the French newspaper L'Equipe, the Lens chairman Gervais Martel said: "The decision was expected. The boy was under contract and they came to steal him from us ... Chelsea behaved in an unacceptable way in contacting the player before he was even 16 years old and while he was still being nurtured by us as he had been since the age of eight and a half. He had the standard French-style training contract with us."
The case will be seen as part of a wider renewed determination by Fifa to get tough on the issue of players breaching their contracts, fearing that smaller clubs were not being properly compensated for individuals that they may have developed.
In April this year, Switzerland's FC Sion were punished for a similar offence over the signing of Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El Hadary from Al-Alhy. It was banned from signing any new players until next summer and El Hadary received a four-month ban.
But after Sion appealed to CAS, the sanctions were frozen while it considers the case, allowing the club to trade during the summer, with a judgment expected later this year. Chelsea are strongly expected to follow a similar route once they receive the full legal grounds for the ruling.
In May, a ruling over Brazlian player Matuzalem was upheld by CAS when he transferred from Shakhtar Donetsk to Reak Zaragoza. In that case the Spanish club were not accused of inducing the player to break his contract but were still made jointly liable for the €11,858,934 fine imposed by CAS.
"Considering the decision passed by CAS in the Matuzalem case in general, Fifa is satisfied that its efforts to defend contractual stability in the world of football are backed by CAS," it said at the time. "In fact, this is an issue in which it is crucial that FIFA, representing the entire football world, and CAS are pulling in the same direction."
In 2004, Roma were also given a ban for two transfer windows following defender Philippe Mexes' move from Auxerre. Roma appealed to the CAS and had the ban cut to one transfer window.
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