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Chelsea ordered to pay £2.5m to Exeter for Ethan Ampadu

Ethan Ampadu in action for Chelsea
Image: Ethan Ampadu joined Chelsea from Exeter last summer

Chelsea have been ordered to pay a £2.5m compensation fee to Exeter City following midfielder Ethan Ampadu's move to the club last summer.

The two teams were unable to agree a fee when the 17-year old moved to Stamford Bridge in July last summer.

Exeter are guaranteed to receive £1.3m based on a transfer fee plus international and first-team appearances already made.

The fee will rise to £2.5m depending on Ampadu's first-team appearances, with Exeter also entitled to receive a 20 per cent sell-on-fee should he leave Chelsea.

A Professional Football Compensation Committee statement read: "Chelsea Football Club should pay Exeter City an initial net fee of £850,000. In addition to the initial payment a fee of £450,000 is also payable.

"This fee incorporates an amount for the player signing a first professional contract, making five first-team appearances and obtaining a senior international cap."

Ethan Ampadu wins the ball from James McCarthy during the Carabao Cup match
Image: Ampadu has featured seven times for the Blues this season

Exeter chairman Julian Tagg expressed his disappointment following the announcement, insisting the judgement sent out the "wrong message" to clubs producing home-grown talent.

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He told the club's official website: "Whilst the club recognise, that the compensation fee is not a transfer fee, but instead to reward the club for its investment in the training and development of a proven outstanding player, and that the tribunal has awarded Exeter significant contingent sums, to say that we are disappointed is an understatement.

"We are disappointed for our fans, our academy, which works so hard on producing talented young players like Ethan and for our management and coaching team who bring these players into the first team and beyond as part of supporting the work of the FA in its objective to produce international players of the highest quality which we believe we have done.

"However, above all, we are disappointed for football as we feel this decision sends the wrong message in terms of financial reward for those owners, chairmen, managers and coaches up and down the country who are also working as hard as us to improve their clubs by producing talented home-grown players for both club and country."

Since joining Chelsea, Ampadu has gone on to make seven first-team appearances for Antonio Conte's side and has received two full international caps for Wales.

In 2016, Ampadu, who can also play in central defence, became Exeter's youngest ever player when making his debut aged 15 years, 10 months and 26 days.

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