Chelsea's hopes of meeting UEFA's financial fair play rules have reportedly just got tougher.
FFP was first implemented at the start of the 2011/12 campaign. Its initial purpose was ensuring clubs were not spending significantly more than they earned to prevent them from falling into financial trouble that could threaten their existence.
Possible penalties for breaching UEFA's FFP rules currently include fines, the withholding of prize money, transfer bans or disqualification from European competitions.
Chelsea have spent more than £1billion on player signings since Todd Boehly and Co took charge at Stamford Bridge in 2022.
In an attempt to comply with FFP and its Premier League equivalent, Chelsea have been signing players on long-term contracts as part of an accountancy technique called amortisation.
Chelsea are reportedly at risk of breaching FFP rules set out by UEFA, and not for the first time
Chelsea also offset some of the club's deficit by selling two club-owned hotels to a sister company for £76.5million.
The Premier League has yet to close a loophole that allows clubs to sell assets to sister companies and register proceeds as income from a financial fair play perspective.
But according to The Times, UEFA has confirmed that it does not allow clubs to register such sales as income on their FFP sheets, while also stating that all cases would need to be assessed individually by an independent panel.
Chelsea - who also sold its women's team to the club's parent company - could therefore struggle to comply with UEFA's FFP rules during the current period.
The Blues did not compete in European competition last season after finishing 12th in the 2022-23 Premier League campaign.
However, after finishing sixth last season, Chelsea are currently in the UEFA Europa Conference League.
The draw for the Conference League's league phase will take place on Friday.
Chelsea have fallen foul of UEFA's FFP rules before. They were fined £8.6m by UEFA in July last year as part of a settlement for breaking their FFP rules by 'submitting incomplete financial information' between 2012 and 2019.
The new Boehly regime reported those breaches after they took over.