This weekend has witnessed a quite extraordinary flurry of transfer activity that has not gone unnoticed at Premier League HQ. In two separate transfers reported to be worth around £9m each, Everton have swapped Lewis Dobbin for Aston Villa’s Tim Iroegbunam in another of this flurry of dealings over the past few days.
This week Chelsea are due to sell their Dutch defender Ian Maatsen to Villa and sign the unproven Villa teenager Omari Kellyman in separate deals reportedly worth £37.5m and £19m respectively. Supposedly Maatsen is on his way to signing a six-year contract. So is Kellyman.
The figure exchanged for Kellyman is a particular eye-opener. The 18-year-old midfielder was purchased by Villa in 2022 for £600,000 and has since made two Premier League appearances. Chelsea may rate Kellyman at £19m, but the website transfermarkt values their new signing at only £800,000.
All of the transfers have taken place just days before the next accountancy deadline for the Premier League’s PSR. However, even though nobody has broken any laws as yet—but The Independent learns that to transfer players with an intent to bypass the PSR is in itself a contravention of the league’s rules on acting in good faith.
What is PSR?
Profit and sustainability regulations state that teams are permitted to lose no more than £105m over a three-year period. Money spent on infrastructure, academies, charity foundations and women’s football can be deducted so teams comply with PSR rules.
Clubs who have broken the rules – including Everton and Nottingham Forest – have been sanctioned with points deductions.
Lewis Dobbin has left Everton to sign for Aston Villa (Peter Byrne/PA)
How do transfers help teams comply with the rules?
Chelsea, Everton, and Aston Villa are all well aware of the situation regarding their financial positions in comparison with PSR.
Chelsea’s lavish transfer spending has seen the club become at risk of breaching the rules; Everton were docked a total of eight points last season for breaching the Premier League’s PSR regulations; in March, Aston Villa confirmed a £119.6m loss in their end-of-year accounts, despite a season that saw their return to European football after more than a decade.
But an accountancy loophole can help to avoid a rule breach. The reason being, while the money received from a sold player can be immediately included in a club’s books, money spent on a transfer is allowed to be spread out across many years’ accounts, over the length of a player’s contract. It’s a practice known as amortisation.
So, in theory, Chelsea could book £19m profit on selling academy product Maatsen, while amortizing the cost of £37.5m Kellyman over his six-year deal. That would represent a nice little fillip to the club’s numbers ahead of the PSR deadline.
Could the Premier League probe?
Again, there is no allegation of wrongdoing on the part of the clubs who have transacted business. It would, however, be in order to investigate such a transfer for possible reminiscence on grounds such as PSR in order to ensure that it has been done on an arm’s-length basis – so without collusion on ulterior motives.
If it can be demonstrated that such a transfer has taken place with the aim of derogating from the rules, such a deal could well be opened to independent scrutiny regarding whether it makes a reflection of fair market value.