Aston Villa have reportedly agreed a deal to sell the club’s women’s team as part of their strategy to avoid breaching PSR and risking a sanction.
Speculation has been rife over Villa’s financial strategy for this summer, as having seen a number of key players depart over the past 12 to 18 months to help balance our books, it was feared that further significant player sales would be needed to address our financial concerns.
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With the June 30 deadline upon us, the expectation was that we would get a clearer update on the situation, and as per The Athletic, Villa are said to have agreed a deal to sell the women’s team to V Sports, the parent company which owns Villa run by co-owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris, as well as a stake to a prominent US-based investor.
It’s added in that report that Villa have communicated that they have no issues regarding PSR and are in constructive talks with UEFA to put a plan in place to address our SCR position, which requires our wage bill to be lowered in order to be compliant.
Further details have since been shared by The Telegraph, who report that Villa have agreed to sell 90 percent of the women’s team to our parent company and the remaining 10 percent to the unnamed investors, with the team being valued in the region of £55m.
Additionally, there is a similar plan in place for ‘The Warehouse’ venue being built next to Villa Park which will serve as a matchday and non-matchday venue for entertainment, and that is said to be valued at around £50m.
While that is all positive and should hopefully now address our PSR concerns, SCR remains an issue for the time being. The Telegraph add that the club has committed to bringing down our player costs by around 20 percent over the next two summers, and while a fine is expected for breaching the regulations this past year, a player sale could still need be needed to help lower our SCR.
In turn, we’re not fully out of the woods just yet, but it’s a massive step towards compliance and avoiding sanctions for any breaches of the financial regulations domestically, while also avoiding the blows of losing key players in this transfer window once again.
It’s testament to the ownership and the management team that they’ve found the necessary solutions, albeit it’s yet to be officially confirmed by the club, and it’s hoped that the focus can soon switch to bringing in reinforcements to strengthen Unai Emery’s squad to continue our progress under his stewardship.
As noted above, there could still be some difficult decisions ahead over the squad and letting certain individuals leave in order to reduce our wage bill to within the parameters allowed by SCR, but Villa are seemingly in a much stronger position now to dictate who we believe we can afford to lose rather than being forced into unwanted exits, and it’s hoped that’s reflected in the business that we do in the coming weeks.
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