The news that [Premier League](https://www.claretandhugh.info/premier-league-bio/) clubs will vote later this month to scrap PSR rules is absolute music to my ears.
The current Profit and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) are set to be replaced with something a little more user-friendly — and quite frankly, it can’t come quickly enough.
For far too long, the West Ham ownership have hidden behind financial regulations — first Financial Fair Play (FFP) and then PSR — to justify the club’s lack of ambition.
To make a clumsy simplification, the rules were meant to stop clubs spending more than they earn. In theory, it was about ensuring financial stability. In reality, it became an ambition killer West Ham hid behind.
Designed to Keep the Big Clubs Winning
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PSR and FFP were introduced under the guise of “protecting” clubs from financial ruin, but what they really did was protect the established elite. They acted as a convenient spending cap to keep the traditional powerhouses — Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, and the rest — firmly at the top.
Once upon a time, clubs like Blackburn, Chelsea, and Manchester City could disrupt the hierarchy by investing heavily. PSR stopped all that. It was football’s version of a closed shop.
And in West Ham terms, it meant that the club’s three billionaires could trot out the same tired line: “We’d love to invest our own money, but we’re not allowed to.”
A Convenient Excuse
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Trying to calculate West Ham’s PSR leeway was always near impossible. The rules were so convoluted that fans were expected to take it on faith whenever the board told [Claret & Hugh](https://www.claretandhugh.info/category/news/): “We have to sell. We have no money. It’s because of PSR.”
From my perspective, it often felt more like a convenient excuse than a genuine restriction. Other clubs found clever workarounds — selling their training grounds to holding companies, using creative accounting, or maximising commercial revenue.
West Ham? We just seemed content to sit on our hands.
It’s also worth remembering that training ground and infrastructure improvements were never part of the PSR calculation. Nothing stopped the board from building a state-of-the-art £50 million training complex — except the will to do so.
The End of Excuses
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So farewell, PSR — and good riddance.
Let’s hope this next set of financial rules comes with new loopholes, new ambition, and maybe even new owners who are willing to use them.
Because West Ham fans deserve to dream again — without those dreams fading and dying by the margins of an accounting ledger.