The Rest is Football: dodgy transfers, PSR jeopardy and multi-club ownership
Some strange transfer business in the Premier League towards the end of June highlighted how some clubs are using loopholes to attempt to stay within spending limits
Premier League football clubs are under increasing pressure to limit their spending and stay within PSR limits, or profit and sustainability rules.
Everton and Nottingham Forest were both hit with points deductions last season for breaking these rules. Several other clubs are in danger as the new season approaches. And the entire system is up for review.
In the last week of June, we saw a spate of strange transfers between clubs who have been charged with overspending or are at risk of being charged.
So what exactly was going on with that rush of big money deals? Which clubs are in real danger of being punished for breaking PSR rules next season? And what happens next?
Gary Lineker invited me onto his “The Rest is Football” podcast to discuss all this and more, including the complexities of the multi-club ownership model within the game.
We recorded the episode yesterday and it’s out today both as a podcast (on Apple here, on Spotify here, or in all your normal pod places), and also in full on TRIF’s YouTube channel.
I’ll be back next week, from Paris, where I’ll be catching up with what’s happening at the Olympics, and hoping to bring you exciting news about a forthcoming interview arising from the recent “Skyfall” series on cycling.
Hello,
I loved your episode on the rest is football and it got me thinking. I’m increasingly sad to see some of the consequences of FFP unfold. I think that when you see non sensical decisions being made not benefitting anyone you need to look at the rules.
Aston Villa’s sale of Douglas Luiz and purchase of Onana for roughly the same amount is a good example of this. I don’t think Aston Villa would have chosen to this, and the main consequence is that the agents have walked away with c.£10m. Not to mention my club needing to sell Gallagher!
And I know you said you’d almost given up on them as broken but I’d like to suggest a solution…, and I have a rough understanding of the finance as a chartered account but no experience in football, is to develop a system to externally revalue players based on what they could reasonably expect to receive from the market
An example of this might be that Chelsea could reasonably expect to receive £40m for Gallagher to be amortised over the remainder of his contract. Therefore gaining the £40m accountancy profit without needing to sell him. This would stop clubs needing to sell home grown players at an important time of their development
Derby tried to do a similar thing a couple of years ago but came up short due to some accounting technicalities due to the transfer market being controlled. My solution to do this would be to have very similar but separate reporting for ffp which allows revaluation which doesn’t quite meet FRS102 definitions. The insurance and banking regulators do something similar where the reporting rules are slightly different but the starting point is the financial accounts
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and hope it makes sense
Best
Tyron King
East Sussex
Very good listen, but lets be honest. The PSR etc is all there to protect the big clubs. In the last 20 years only 6 clubs have won the Prem and the outlier in that is Leicester. The rules need to change. The same clubs still dominate the FA and EFL trophies too.