An independent FA commission has imposed a larger sanction on Chelsea than on West Ham United following the mass brawl in the January Premier League derby. Both clubs were found guilty of “failing to ensure its players didn\u2019t behave in an improper and\/or provocative and\/or violent way at this time”, but Chelsea\u2019s record of prior breaches increased their penalty.<\/p>\n
The confrontation followed a dramatic late sequence in which the visitors surrendered a 2\u20130 lead and trailed 3\u20132 entering stoppage time. With only minutes remaining, Adama Traor\u00e9 battled with Marc Cucurella for a corner and the situation escalated. Taylor booked Pedro and Traor\u00e9 before a consultation with the pitch-side monitor led to Todibo\u2019s dismissal.<\/p>\n
Both Chelsea and West Ham accepted the FA\u2019s charge early and saw their provisional fines each reduced by \u00a375,000. The independent regulatory commission which ruled on the punishment did not accept the framing of Chelsea as victims. “This was a typical case where both sides claim that without the actions of the other, the incident would not have occurred,” the report read.<\/p>\n
The report singled out Cucurella by name. “It was not accepted that Mr. Cucurella was wholly without fault,” the report found. “He was aware of his actions after conceding the corner kick and returning to his feet. He sought to invite a reaction from Mr. Traor\u00e9.” The document also noted crowd-related behaviour by Chelsea players. “Furthermore, the Commission noted that three of the Chelsea players were in some way seeking to incite the crowd during and towards the end of the incident. There is no justification for this behaviour, irrespective of what had happened during the course of the game or within the mass confrontation itself.”<\/p>\n
West Ham\u2019s culpability centred on Traor\u00e9 and Todibo, but the decisive factor in the relative size of the fines was past discipline. This was Chelsea\u2019s sixth sanction in the last five seasons and their third this term alone. West Ham had committed three prior offences since the summer of 2021. The report also name-checked the mischievous Marc Cucurella.<\/p>\n
The club record of previous fines listed in the commission\u2019s material included: Aug. 28, 2021 Liverpool (A) \u00a325,000; Oct. 6, 2024 Nottingham Forest (H) \u00a340,000; Dec. 30, 2024 Ipswich (A) \u00a340,000; Dec. 27, 2025 Aston Villa (H) \u00a3150,000; Jan. 7, 2026 Fulham (A) \u00a320,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea’s history of sanctions led to a heavier FA fine after the Chelsea-West Ham brawl. Explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172,438],"tags":[1490,1491],"class_list":["post-7098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","category-west-ham-united","tag-disciplinary-record","tag-match-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}