The Premier League is set to investigate a number of transfers that were made ahead of the PSR deadline.
June 30th was the final day of business for top-flight clubs ahead of submitting their latest financial numbers and prior to that deadline — nicknamed by many as an ‘unofficial transfer window’ — we saw several homegrown players make big-money moves.
Aston Villa, Chelsea, Leicester, Newcastle United, Everton and Nottingham Forest were all particularly active and are clubs known to be walking a fine line when it comes to PSR compliance — the latter two, of course, already suffering points deductions last season.
Tim Iroegbunam and Lewis Dobbin were exchanged in separate deals between Everton and Aston Villa, with the latter also completing deals with Chelsea involving Omari Kellyman and Ian Maatsen.
Newcastle, meanwhile, fetched handsome sums for the sales of Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson to Brighton and Nottingham Forest, respectively.
Premier League to investigate club dealings
At present, there is no suggestion that any of the clubs involved in these transfers have broken any rules. Instead, the deals have been described as exploiting ‘loopholes’ in the current regulations.
However, according to The Guardian, the Premier League is set to launch an investigation anyway, with clubs possibly required to “provide information and evidence to assist determination of whether the transaction should be considered as being conducted at arm’s length. If not, a fair market value assessment of the transfer to determine the value the transaction can be approved at will take place”.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire also told The Guardian: “The clubs have been very clever to say that these are not swaps, they are just individual deals signed off pretty soon after one another.
“Generally speaking there’s nothing to stop them saying, ‘I’ve got a player who you want and vice versa. We think that your player is worth £5m more than mine, so we could agree that the prices are £10m and £15m or we could agree that they are £25m and £30m’. Either way, you get that extra £5m.
“That appears to be a driving force in relation to these transfers. And there is no such thing as a genuine price: Brighton have paid £32m for Yankuba Minteh from Newcastle and they have got no PSR issues. So if that’s the price for a 19-year-old, it could be argued that some of the other deals don’t look overstated. But he has just had a spectacular season with Feyenoord.”