Arsenal charged with allegedly breaking FA Football Agents Regulations in £16m signing of Calum Chambers

Chambers joined Arsenal from Southampton for £16m last July

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Chambers lift the FA Cup (Getty Images)

Arsenal have been charged by the Football Association over the signing of Callum Chambers from Southampton last season over breaching football agent rules, it has been confirmed.

The Gunners signed Chambers from their fellow Premier League club last summer in a £16m transfer, with the teenager going on to feature regularly in the Arsenal defence for the first half of the season and go on to make his England debut.

However, the FA has confirmed on Friday that they have charged the FA Cup winners for allegedly breaching their football agents regulations.

A statement issued on the FA’s official website read: “Arsenal have been charged for allegedly breaching The FA’s Football Agents Regulations.

“The charge is in relation to the transfer of Calum Chambers from Southampton to Arsenal on 26 July 2014.

Arsenal signed Chambers in July 2014 (Twitter/@ArsenalFC)

“Authorised agent Alan Middleton has also been charged for allegedly breaching The FA’s Football Agents Regulations in relation to the same transfer.

“Mr Middleton has until 17 June 2015 to respond to the charge.

“Arsenal have until 26 June 2015 after they requested more time to respond to the charge.”

Arsenal issued a brief statement to reveal that they are "considering their position" and have "acted in good faith" in the act of signing Chambers.

Chambers made 36 appearances for Arsenal in his debut season

Chambers made 36 appearances in his debut season for the Gunners, scoring his one and only goal in the 3-0 victory over Burnley in November. However, Chambers picked up an alarming number of yellow cards early in the season that saw him pick up a Premier League suspension at the start of October, and he was sent-off in the 3-2 defeat to Stoke in December before seeing his playing time decrease significantly.

The return to fitness of Mathieu Debuchy and the emergence of Hector Bellerin meant Chambers was no long featuring at right-back, and manager Arsene Wenger elected to stick with Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny for the bulk of Arsenal's matches in the run in towards the end of the season.

Since the turn of the year, Chambers has made just four Premier League starts for Arsenal.

A complaint from a third party first arose in February, although the Gunners played down any wrongdoing through manager Arsene Wenger, who said at the time: "I am very happy about his transfer. I made over 350 transfers since I am here. We have a lot of enquiries about them and we never had any problem."