Chelsea head coach Xabi Alonso was caught off guard following his side's 2-0 defeat against Tottenham after learning that striker Joao Pedro's absence had been exposed through Fantasy Premier League. Accounts tracked as belonging to Chelsea staff, a player, and a relative of a player appeared to bench or transfer out the forward prior to the FPL deadline. Alonso, who later explained that Pedro was sidelined because of "fluid on his knee" despite having been photographed in training during the week, admitted: "I am not into the fantasy team thing, so I didn't know that."
The early warning signs were uncovered by an FPL manager known online as FPL Karim, who noted that a relative of Chelsea forward Morgan Rogers had traded Joao Pedro out for Nicolas Jackson. With Pedro being one of the game's most heavily selected forwards, the unusual swap prompted Karim to share the news online, where it rapidly circulated. Because official confirmation of the injury only surfaced after the game's transfer deadline had passed, approximately 1.7 million managers in the 11-million-player game were left stranded having handed Pedro the captain's armband to double his points.
Unintentional information breaches through the game's open database are an ongoing problem across the top division, with accounts connected to Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Leicester previously raising eyebrows. The issue notably surfaced in February 2021 when Jack Grealish was ruled out for Aston Villa against Leicester City; following a 2-1 loss, Villa manager Dean Smith reportedly banned club figures from playing, while Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola branded the leaks "unethical and unprofessional." Account tracker FPL Focal explained that public leaderboards make it easy to spot profiles, leading some footballers to adopt aliases to hide their tactical changes.
For Chelsea, the episode revisits past operational vulnerabilities, having previously suffered three leaks under former manager Liam Rosenior—including ahead of both legs of an 8-2 aggregate Champions League defeat to Paris St-Germain—as well as an incident where former defender Marc Cucurella's barber revealed injuries to Pedro and Cole Palmer. Despite introducing new fencing around their training ground pitches and cautioning players, Chelsea and other clubs face limitations. The Premier League has no official regulations against competing and treats the issue as an internal club concern, leaving teams with little power to monitor the fantasy decisions of players' friends and relatives.