The circumstances around the transfer of French teenager Gael Kakuta from Lens to Chelsea has landed the Premier League club a hefty ban from FIFA.

The game’s governing body released the following statement:

"The French club had lodged a claim with FIFA seeking compensation for breach of contract from the player and requesting also sporting sanctions to be imposed on the player and the English club for breach of contract and inducement to breach of contract respectively.

"The DRC found that the player had indeed breached a contract signed with the French club. Equally, the DRC deemed it to be established that the English club induced the player to such breach.

"As a result the player was condemned to pay compensation in the amount of 780,000 euros ($1.12m), for which the club, Chelsea, is jointly and severally liable, and sporting sanctions were imposed on both the player and Chelsea in accordance with art. 17 par. 3 and 4 of the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players.

"A restriction of four months on his eligibility to play in official matches is imposed on the player Gael Kakuta while the club 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.

"Furthermore, Chelsea has to pay RC Lens training compensation in the amount of 130,000 euros ($185,000)."

Predictably, Chelsea released a statement proclaiming that they would appeal the ruling:

'Chelsea will mount the strongest appeal possible following the decision of FIFA's Dispute Resolution Chamber over Gael Kakuta.

'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.'

Luckily for the Blues, John Terry, Didier Drogba Ashley Cole and Florent Malouda recently signed long term extensions, while Michael Ballack also penned a further one-year extension to his deal.

However, the majority of Chelsea's stars are approaching or are on the wrong side of 30, and it the appeal fails, the club could be facing a major dilemma.