London  - Lens Chairman Gervais Martel on Thursday welcomed the decision of football's controlling body FIFA to ban Chelsea from making transfers until 2011 after they induced teenager Gael Kakuta to breach his contract with the club.

"The decision was expected," Martel said. "The boy was under contract and they came to steal him from us...

"Chelsea behaved in an unacceptable way in contacting the player before he was even 16 years old and while he was still being nurtured by us as he had been since the age of eight and a half. He had the standard French-style training contract with us."

Kakuta, who is now 18, joined Chelsea from Lens two years ago, prompting the French club to report them to FIFA.

FIFA's dispute resolution chamber (DRC) found in Lens's favour, ruling that Chelsea had approached Kakuta illegally and banning them from registering players in the next two transfer windows.

The attacking midfielder was voted player of the season at Chelsea's academy last season.

Chelsea are understood to be awaiting full legal documentation before commenting, but it is expected they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS).

In April this year, Swiss side Sion were banned from signing players until next summer after being found guilty of a similar offence in the tranfser of Egyptian goalkeeper Essam al-Hadary from Al-Ahly.

They appealed, and the suspension has been frozen pending a decision from CAS.

In 2004, Roma had a ban reduced from two transfer windows to one after they were found to have illegally induced defender Philippe Mexes from Auxerre.

"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," a FIFA statement said.

"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 (1.1 million dollars), for which the club, Chelsea, is jointly and severally liable, and sporting sanctions were imposed on both the player and Chelsea.

"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."

The move is a major shock, but it is not the first time Chelsea's transfer policy has been called into question.

In 2006 Chelsea had to pay 16 million pounds (26.2 million euros) in compensation - 12 million pounds to Manchester United and 4 million to Lyn - after signing Nigerian midfielder Mikel John Obi after he had seemingly joined United.

In the same year, the Leeds United chairman Ken Bates called for them to have points deducted after approaches were made to two Leeds youth players, Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods.

A year earlier they had been fined 300,000 pounds for "tapping-up" Ashley Cole before his move from Arsenal.  dpa