Lausanne (AFP)

Chelsea authorized to recruit from January 1st! The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Friday eased the recruitment ban imposed on the English club for offenses on the transfer of minors, bringing it from two to one transfer window, already served last summer.

"Chelsea is banned from registering new players (...) during a recruitment window, which the club has already served during the 2019 summer recruitment window," the CAS wrote in a statement.

The CAS also reduced the fine of the London club from 600,000 to 300,000 Swiss francs (273,000 euros).

It's a win for Chelsea after two far tougher FIFA decisions: on Feb. 22, the international federation banned Chelsea from recruiting for the next two transfer periods, due to violations of international transfer regulations. minor players. According to Fifa, Chelsea had broken the rules for 29 of them.

Then, in early May, the Fifa Appeals Committee upheld this decision, barring the London club from registering new players in the summer mercatos of 2019 and January 2020.

Therefore, the "Blues", now trained by Frank Lampard, could not replace their star Eden Hazard, part for Real Madrid in June in exchange for a hundred million euros.

- Open door for Giroud? -

The decision on Friday makes it possible to recruit this winter a replacement of the Belgian offensive midfielder, while opening the door to a departure of the French international striker Olivier Giroud, blocked by the competition in Chelsea.

The center-forward of the Blues, third top scorer in the history of the team of France, is in search of playing time in club to ensure its place in the Euro-2020 and could change air this winter since his club will be able to find a replacement for him on the market.

The English press had unveiled in September 2017 the existence of investigations targeting the "Blues". The Guardian investigated a few months later the case of Burkinabe striker Bertrand Traore, currently at Olympique Lyonnais.

While Chelsea claims to have registered his transfer after his 18 years in 2014, the Guardian quoted a game played by the player in the Chelsea youth team against Arsenal at the age of 16, in October 2011.

Mediapart, in its Football Leaks, then claimed that Traoré had been transferred in 2011 from the Association Jeunes Espoirs Bobo-Dioulasso (AJEB) in Burkina Faso, against 400,000 pounds sterling (459,000 euros today), while that Chelsea evoked a simple "option".

FIFA has already sanctioned other clubs in the past for the same reasons: in 2014, Barcelona had been banned from recruitment for two mercatos, in 2016, Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid had received a similar penalty.

If Real had obtained from the TAS a reduced penalty (and already purged during a transfer window winter), Atlético had for its part seen its transfer ban maintained until January 2018.

© 2019 AFP