Richard Masters
Richard Masters
Aston Villa have reached the Champions League quarter-finals. The Villains have qualified for Europe in each of the last three seasons. Unai Emery has even sold Moussa Diaby, Douglas Luiz and Jhon Duran for sizeable fees to help balance the books.
Yet there was a reason why Damian Vidagany, director of football operations, warned a 'challenging summer' was on the cards at the club's end of season awards night.
"With the PSR and financial rules, it is going to be hard," .
This is not an ode to Aston Villa, who have the highest wage to turnover ratio in the Premier League, or even Newcastle United, who very nearly paid the price for years of poor trading until the Magpies sold Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh at the 11th hour last summer.
However, these clubs are operating in an outdated PSR system that was never designed to encourage ambitious disruptors.
In fact, after the rules were introduced, in 2013, Leicester City were the only outsider to qualify for the Champions League for the best part of a decade - and that was a one-off for the Foxes.
Leicester ultimately fell away following their incredible title triumph and the established order subsequently , which obviously suited the usual suspects.
Similarly, after Newcastle's takeover, clubs wasted no time in voting through new sponsorship rules - despite the Magpies being in relegation trouble at the time - while Aston Villa later failed with a proposal to raise permitted losses from £105m to £135m just last summer.
That did not stop Newcastle from qualifying for the Champions League in 2023 and 2025, though, and Aston Villa also secured a seat at Europe's top table in 2024.
However, these upwardly mobile clubs still have a huge revenue gap to bridge, particularly when the established order have had a head start.
For context, in top-flight sides' last set of published accounts, Chelsea (£337.8m) were among five members of the so-called 'big six' who spent more on wages than what Newcastle (£320.3m) and Aston Villa (£275.7m) generated in revenue in 2023-24.
With the help of the aggressive trading of academy graduates for pure profit and the sale of assets, such as club hotels and their women's side, Chelsea have substantial PSR headroom despite years of extravagant spending.
It led to former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan commenting that Chelsea had been 'hiding in plain sight' all along after clubs failed to hold a vote on addressing such lucrative deals at top-flight meetings.
Chelsea, as a result, have been able to stockpile talent to the point where outsiders may forget that the Blues are still paying the wages of Raheem Sterling, Joao Felix and Mykhailo Mudryk.
If one of those signings did not work out, it would prove costly for Newcastle or Aston Villa, but Chelsea have only added to their already huge stable of forwards after moving for Joao Pedro, Jamie Gittens, Estevao, Christopher Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson, Noni Madeuke, Liam Delap or Cole Palmer in the last two years alone.
Yet Richard Masters insisted that Chelsea have not 'exploited any loopholes'. The Premier League chief executive even stressed the sale of the club's women's side to a parent company was 'permissible' - and he's right.
No wonder Aston Villa look set to follow suit. This is PSR in 2025.
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