Unai Emery Enzo Maresca Chelsea Aston Villa
(Credit: Imago/Hasan Karim, Breaking Media)
Stefan Borson
Mon 30 June 2025 13:08, UK
Aston Villa and Chelsea will face sanctions this week following their “big” financial breaches.
The Premier League duo agreed last-ditch sales to avoid a potential profit and sustainability (PSR) breach for 2023-24, while Stamford Bridge chiefs have also sold some non-football-related assets.
Chelsea sold their women’s team to owners BlueCo last summer for around £200million, helping them turn their previous £90million loss for 2022-23 into a £128million profit for 2023-24.
The west London club’s latest accounts for 2023-24 revealed their overall revenue fell from £513million in 2022-23 to £469million, while their wage bill dropped from £404million to £338million.
Villa posted a club-record revenue in 2023-24 after their turnover surged from £217.7million in 2022-23 to £275.7million, with their losses falling from £119.6million to £85.4million.
Meanwhile, the club’s wage bill increased from £194million to £252million across the same period.
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The i Paper reported on 25 June Chelsea and Villa are set to be fined this week for breaching Uefa’s financial rules.
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider the top-flight duo are likely to have “very big” losses in their Uefa calculations.
Clubs in European competitions were required to keep spending on player wages and fees to 80 per cent of revenue last year, while they are permitted to lose up to £77million over a three-years period.
Borson previously told Football Insider Villa likely purposely breached the financial rules after realising they couldn’t achieve their ambitions without taking some risks.
Unai Emery’s side finished sixth in the Premier League table in the 2024-25 season, while Chelsea ended the campaign in fourth place.
Premier League table Aston Villa
Aston Villa finished sixth in the Premier League table (Credit: Hasan Karim – Breaking Media)
Aston Villa and Chelsea face financial blow
Borson revealed Villa and Chelsea are likely to face financial penalties.
He told Football Insider: “We understand we will have details of Villa and Chelsea’s Uefa breaches this week, and we’ll find out what fines and settlement agreements they’ve entered into with Uefa.
“It’s interesting because you’ve got a situation where the only thing we’ve seen historically are the breaches of the sort of predecessor rules and not the breaches that I think Aston Villa and Chelsea will have breached.
“If you look at, for example, squad cost control breaches and historic breaches, they are relatively small fines. Some time ago, Uefa sort of moved away from the very dramatic and very large sanctions against Manchester City and PSG etc. and moved to a relatively tame set of financial penalties.
“PSG had the biggest set and are still in the settlement period, but they were very manageable numbers. Barcelona had a very serious breach and that was deemed to be deliberate by CAS. They were only fined €500,000 (£428,000).
“We know Manchester United were fined a very small amount. I think it was €300,000 (£257,000) for their breach, so the breaches historically and the sanctions that are detailed within the Uefa FFP rules related to squad cost control are minor.
“However, the likely other breaches and probably more likely breaches that Chelsea and Aston Villa have failed on is the other test within the Uefa rules, which is more similar to PSR, where it caps your accepted losses.
“It caps them at €90million (£77million), providing you put in the necessary equity into the club. So, I think they’ll breach those, and they’ll effectively have very big losses.
“When Uefa disregard the sort of things that they disregard, intra-group sales, transfers of assets, and also some of the swap deals, once that’s all disregarded by Uefa, the breaches are quite big on those tests.
“What we don’t know from the Uefa rules because it’s not spelled out, is what the sanctions will be for breaches of that part of the Uefa rule book. I still think it’s likely that there are only financial penalties.
“The scale of them is uncertain at the moment.”
Enzo Maresca, Chelsea
Enzo Maresca led Chelsea to the Conference League trophy (Credit: Imago)
Aston Villa’s Matty Cash sale hits stumbling block
In terms of a potential exit at Villa Park, Football Insider revealed on 28 June Villa are willing to sell Matty Cash this summer despite him being a regular starter under Emery.
However, a deal has been held up due to the right-back’s £100,000-a-week wages.
Villa have fielded enquiries for the 27-year-old from clubs in the Premier League and abroad in recent weeks.
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