Rodrygo, Jules Kounde, Andriy Lunin, Archie Grey and Semih Kilicsoy. That is just a list of some of then players Arsenal have been linked with this morning.
I remember back in the day we used to do an A to Z of transfer speculation.
In the mid 00s, it was fairly easy to manage as social media and clickbait blogs (beyond Goal.com) were not really a thing. the majority of the speculation came from newspapers.
Despite less sources, we would still get close to 200 names linked with us over the summer.
These days we do not bother with the A to Z of transfer speculation. There are just too many “news outlets” that rely on transfer speculation to generate their advertising revenue.
Were we to do it, and take into account every source, we would probably get above 500 players on the list. It would be a full time job – and I struggle to write the blog these days along with my full time job, let alone also go through every link on NewsNow.
It has been a quiet start for all clubs in terms of transfers. Although this has to be expected with a major summer tournament ongoing.
PSR also means that teams are less likely to do deals before 1 July – any deal up until 30 June needs to go into a clubs 2023/24 season accounts and signing a new player early can create a breach.
The only sniff we have had of deals so far is the transfer merry-go-round that some clubs are trying to instigate to ensure their books balance for 2023/24.
Aston Villa have balanced their books by doing deals with both Chelsea and Everton – Ian Maatsen and Lewis Dobin in, Omari Kellyman and Tim Iroegbunam out.
These deals bring instant income to all clubs that allows them to keep within PSR, whilst in turn kicks debt down the road in amoritised transfer fees. These sort of deals are a poor way to run a football club and there is only so long you can operate in this manner until it catches up to you.
I will be laughing at the tears when Everton or Aston Villa go into administration. I am sure their fans will find a way to blame Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United.
As for The Arsenal, we continue to operate sensibly, in the right manner. We continue to grow on and off the pitch with new, better players coming in as income rises. We really are a well run club these days.
I am off for a BBQ and to try and enjoy some sunshine in Essex. Have a great Saturday!
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.
Luckily for She Wore, I have a legal background so when we set up the blog I was already upskilled on what we can and can not write. Unfortunately, it seems like other platforms have not learned over the years about what content they are allowed to publish without fear of reprisals.
It was no surprise to me that Manchester City have issued numerous blogs with cease and desist letters in the last few weeks.
For those unaware on UK law, a cease and desist letter is used to stop alleged or actual infringements, such as copyright, trademark or libel. They are often used by bigger companies against “smaller” companies or individuals as an initial warning.
Their aim is to encourage the receiver to halt their activities without the need of costly (to both sides) more formal legal action. If the receiver does not halt their activities, the fact that they received the letter will be frowned upon in court as they were fully aware what they were doing might infringe copyright or be libellous.
The letters from Manchester City would have by sent out to inform the receivers of potential libellous comments.
In the UK, you are innocent until proven guilty. If you accuse someone in public of being something (such as a nonce), and they decide to take you to court of the comments, you then have to prove that your statement was correct. Impossible if it was untrue.
Thousands on Twitter make libellous comments everyday, not realising that they are potentially opening themselves up to civil proceedings. Former actor turns activist Lawrence Fox was recently told to pay £180,000 in libel damages following comments on the social media platform.
To put it simply, you can not say or write things that are untrue and might damage another reputation without infringing defamation law (the law that libel (writing) and slander (spoken) sit within).
Most of us get away with making these comments all day long because we are insignificant. A 17-year-old with 367 followers is not worth going after from these company’s point of view. The amount it will cost them to find out who the individual is, their address, issue the letter and so on just is not worth it.
But when you get big enough, with huge influence (or in terms of copywrite make big sales / have a product go viral), you will quickly end up on the radar of big businesses or individuals willing to pursue the matter.
AFTV, for example, were pressured to remove “Arsenal” from their name due to the damage they were doing to the club’s name. Many other clubs use Arsenal within their blog names, but they are deemed either not big enough, or not damaging enough to the club, for them to act.
The United Stand (TUS) are the highest profile company that have allegedly received a cease and desist letter from Manchester City with regards to their 115 charges.
TUS are basically Man U’s version of AFTV – like Robbie Lyle, Brent Di Cesare (AKA Mark Goldbridge), was not a boyhood fan of the club he talked about, and instead spotted an opportunity to make himself a lot of money. The former police officer then created a platform of hate and ridicule to profit from Man U’s demise. And for those wondering, this is not libellous. It is factual.
And that is the thing with libel. You are allowed to write the facts. And Manchester City’s cease and desist letter does not stop people talking about the case.
You will always notice that mainstream media outlets always have a different commentary to blogs and vlogs. They are more formal and do not speculate. That is because these institutions are aware of what they can and can not say, and that you can only report the facts that have been made public and are verified.
The simplest example of libellous comments made against City is calling them “cheats”.
As it stands, they are not cheats. They are innocent until proven guilty remember. They have been charged, but it has not yet been proven they have done anything wrong. So anyone that calls them a cheat right now would be making a libellous comment unless they can prove that City did cheat.
As the Premier League are currently trying to build a case to prove that City cheated, I would be highly surprised if any individual can defend their comments. They will be reliant on the Premier League winning their case which will be the concrete proof needed to label City cheats.
If City successfully defend the accusations leveled against them, we might see them step up their legal action against the likes of TUS, if they decide to continue with their comments.
Labelling a football club (or any sporting individual) a cheat is cleary damaging to reputation. This will be a lesson to those online that you can not just say anything you want without fear of repercussions. Stick to the facts and follow the law (and we have not even got onto injunctions yet).
A few City fans have said things like “the media have changed their tune” since the letters allegedly went out. This is incorrect. The media always acted within the law.
A quick Google of “Manchester City Cheats” shows that no media outlet ever accused them of cheating. They all merely said they had been charged, and what they have been charged with.
Whenever they spoke about Manchester City and “cheating” they always quoted another party such as Stan Collymore. This is not them calling Man City cheats, but them quoting an individual and reporting what that individual said. Still sticking to the facts!
Big fish often do not like strong-arming the little guy. It is bad and also frowned upon in court. That is why they will send a cease and desist letter first rather than going straight for legal action, so that in court they can at least say “we warned you”. It takes away the chance of the little guy presenting themselves as a victim.
For transparency, a company I am involved in (not SheWore.com), received a cease and desist letter from the club over the use of Mikel Arteta’s “Transparency, Energy, Clarity” drawing on t-shirts.
We went viral very quickly and were selling 1 a minute at one point. Within a week the club had sent us a letter asking us to stop selling the product. We complied but were also frustrated that others were still selling (and continue to do so). It is an example of how the clubs can not go after anyone, but will go after those who are bigger, or have gone viral.
Some will try and label all this as bullying, and claim Manchester City are trying to change the narrative. The truth is, you can not say anything that damages another reputation unless you can prove it is true. And those labelling City “cheats” can not prove that is is true.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 