Aston Villa close on signing Ian Maatsen after agreeing terms on six-year deal
Aston Villa forward Jhon Duran ‘excited’ to complete Chelsea transfer
Chelsea looking to sign Jhon Duran for around £40m, whilst Aston Villa pursue Ian Maatsen in a deal worth around £37m has raised a few eyebrows considering both clubs were on the list of “needing to sell” by the end of the month to avoid breaching Profit and Sustainability Rules.
How can they spend without selling first was a common comment under social media posts providing updates on the deal as many scratched their head. But what both clubs are looking to get out of their PSR predicament by scratching each other’s backs.
When you sell a player, 100% of the book profit goes straight into the accounts – the book profit being the difference between what you sell for minus what you still have remaining in amortised transfer fees.
But when you buy a player, you only need to account for 20% of their transfer fee if they are signing a 5-year deal.
Duran was signed in January 2023 by Villa for £14.75m. They have around £10m remaining in amortised transfer fees. If they sell for £40m, they then show a book profit of £30m. That is probably more than enough to keep them out of trouble with PSR.
Ian Maatsen has come through Chelsea’s youth system, so the £37m rumoured transfer fee would be 100% book profit.
Working the deals the other way (based on 5-year deals), Duran will cost Chelsea £8m a year, and Maatsen £7.4m to Villa.
For the 2023/24 accounts, the difference between Chelsea selling Maatsen and buying Duran is £29m, whilst Villa’s side of the deal will show a net £22.6m. These figures might be enough to ensure neither club falls foul to PSR for this year.
To make it clear, what they are doing is not a loophole, nor is either club twisting the rules. But it is the sort of transfer merry-go-round we will begin seeing clubs partake more in.
If you and another club are close to breaking PSR, instead of “having” to sell a star player to stay within the rules, you could just do a deal with another club in a similar situation for a “player swap”. But instead of just swapping players, you assign a fee to both.
At its extreme, you could both pick a 20-year-old academy graduate that you no longer really want, and sell them for £100m. Neither club is really spending anything as you are bank-transferring £100m across and then receiving £100m back. But what you are then doing is adding £100m profit to this years accounts.
Back in 2020, Juventus signed Arthur Melo from Barcelona on a five-year contract for €72m. “Going the other way”, Miralem Pjanić joined Barcelona from Juventus for €60m. The huge fees ensured that both clubs did not breach UEFA FFP rules.
The issue with this tactic is it is very short term.
Whilst you are adding £100m to your accounts for this year (based on if 2 clubs decide to push the situation to the max), it then adds a further £20m to a clubs amortisation costs for the next 4 years. That is money they then need to find. And whilst they could continue repeating the trick, each time you do it adds more to your costs for a player you might not really want.
And this is where a lack of knowledge comes in.
If Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle or Nottingham Forest do this sort of deal together, their fans will celebrate “getting one over” the Premier League, not realising that they are not really solving the fact that their club is badly run.
I think we will see more of these sort of deals over the next few years. Aston Villa are this morning getting linked with Everton’s Lewis Dobbin. Do not be surprised if you see someone like Jacob Ramsey go the other way.
These sort of deals are a move of desperation. They are short-term. The footballing equivalent of taking out a pay day loan. They are not something a serious club would do.
Like Chelsea offering extreme long term contracts to bring down the amortisation costs, these sort of transfers are perfectly fine. But there is a huge downside that should be clear and obvious to all.
Badly run clubs need to come within the rules by ensuring their books naturally balance, and not by relying on selling hotels, training grounds or involving themselves in transfer merry-go-rounds. All of these are short term solutions and will just kick the can of debt and punishment down the road.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 