Arsenal fined 60,000 pounds over Chambers deal

LONDON (Reuters) – Arsenal have been fined 60,000 pounds ($92,052) and warned about their future conduct for breaching agent regulations when signing defender Calum Chambers from Southampton in July 2014.

The FA said in a statement on Monday that authorised agent Alan Middleton and unlicensed agent Philip Ercolano were both involved in the deal.

“Alan Middleton has also been warned as to his future conduct and sanctioned for breaching the FA’s football agent regulations in relation to the same matter,” the FA added.

Middleton has been fined 30,000 pounds and given a suspended ban of three months.

“We acted in good faith throughout in this transfer and had no reason to believe that the player’s representative (Ercolano)was not authorised to be involved in the transfer negotiations,” said an Arsenal statement.

“The FA fully recognised that there was no intention to mislead on Arsenal’s part. We have improved our procedures to prevent this happening again.”

Arsenal travel to Championship club Sheffield Wednesday for a Capital One Cup fourth-round tie on Tuesday.

($1 = 0.6518 pounds)

(Reporting by Steve Tongue; Editing by Tony Jimenez)