A fantasy football transfer appears to have exposed Joao Pedro’s injury before kick-off, and Chelsea have now emailed staff about it.
Chelsea have written to their staff warning them that playing Fantasy Premier League could accidentally give away confidential team news, after a forward's injury appeared to leak before a match through fantasy team selections.
Fantasy Premier League, usually shortened to FPL, is the free online game run by the English Premier League in which millions of fans pick a squad of real players each week and score points based on how those players perform in actual matches. Managers must drop injured or unused players before kick-off, which is exactly where the problem came in.
What happened
According to Daily Guide Network, the warning followed Chelsea's 2-0 home loss to Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge, a game in which striker Joao Pedro was unexpectedly left out. It later emerged that he was carrying a quad injury.
Before kick-off, several well-known FPL content creators said they had seen evidence that forward Morgan Rogers and a number of Chelsea staff members had removed Pedro from their fantasy squads. At that point the club had not publicly announced any injury.
In an internal email, staff were reminded of the risks of using inside club information when playing FPL or similar public gaming platforms, where a simple transfer can signal who is injured, who is being rested, or who is about to return.
Manager says he was unaware
Asked about the episode by BBC Sport after the defeat, Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso said he had no knowledge of it. "I am not into the fantasy team thing, so I didn't know that," the 44-year-old said.
Alonso, who took charge in the summer, has generally said little about injuries in his press conferences.
Not Chelsea's first leak
The club has had information slip out before. During Liam Rosenior's four-month spell as manager last season, Chelsea's starting line-ups were leaked ahead of both legs of their Champions League defeat to Paris St-Germain.
In another case, a barber who cut the hair of former Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella posted on social media that Pedro and Cole Palmer would miss a trip to Brighton, after discussing it with his client.
What happens next
Chelsea are not expected to impose new rules or ban staff from playing. The club treats the matter as a one-off that can be handled by making players and staff more alert to what their fantasy transfers reveal.
The issue is wider than one club. BBC Sport has identified fantasy accounts that FPL trackers believe are linked to well-known players and officials at clubs across the league, with similar claims made about teams including Arsenal, Liverpool, Leicester and Newcastle.
For Ghanaian fans in Accra, Kumasi or the United States who play FPL and follow transfer rumours closely, it is a reminder that team news sometimes escapes long before any official club statement.