Aston Villa are set to post more heavy financial losses according to a UEFA report - this is how it could affect their transfers
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Updated 17:07, 11 Mar 2025
General view outside the stadium as fans welcome the Aston Villa team coach with a flare prior to the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Phase MD8 match between Aston Villa FC and Celtic FC at Villa Park
Champions League football will help boost Villa's income, a key factor in balancing PSR issues
Aston Villa haven’t officially published their accounts for 2023/24, but the release of a key UEFA report has given observers plenty of clues.
European football’s governing body released its annual European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report, which took a temperature check of the fiscal health of the game across the continent, revealing plenty of headline figures ahead of the release of some club accounts.
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In the case of Villa, a pre-tax loss of more than £80m for the financial year was one of European football’s 10 largest, and that was despite the club set to post record-breaking revenues.
Reaching the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League helped Villa record the 18th largest revenue across the continent of around £270m. Juventus recorded the highest losses for 2024 before tax at roughly £165m, while Chelsea came in at a £93m loss, behind Villa.
On the back of what was a £120.3m pre-tax loss for the previous financial year of 2022/23, another £80m reverse will undoubtedly have alarm bells ringing among some Villa fans, especially given that the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) are in effect until at least the end of next season after a vote by member clubs last month.
But in terms of what was expected, little has changed, and the loss was already cleared as being PSR compliant when the club passed over their accounts for scrutiny to the Premier League at the end of December. Selling the likes of Tim Iroegbunam, Douglas Luiz and Omari Kellyman late in the financial year helped the club remain under the PSR threshold.
But Villa are now well into a new financial year, one that comes to an end at the end of June, and they have the considerable sums gleaned from qualification for the UEFA Champions League to aid their efforts. So far, with the club having one foot in the last eight of the competition after their last-16 first leg win over Club Brugge, Villa have pocketed more than £70m, a figure that could yet push closer to the £100m mark.
They will also book the considerable profit of some £52.7million on Jhon Duran's £64.5m move to Al-Nassr in January, something that will almost certainly see revenue at Villa rise to record levels for 2024/25.
Accounts look at a snapshot in time, and the heavy losses, while a concern when looking at the wider theme and three-year cycle of PSR, aren’t particularly relevant in terms of seeing where Villa are at in the here and now.
Back in January, football finance expert Swiss Ramble laid out predictions for who would be at potential risk of a PSR breach when looking ahead to the 2024/25 financial period, using calculations and estimations made on publicly available accounts at the time, revenue distribution that was known for the likes of the Champions League, as well as player trading sums.
Those estimations came out as having Villa at an £81.6m loss for 2023/24, almost exactly what the UEFA report is now saying.
PSR allows for clubs to lose a maximum of £120m over a three-year period, with allowable deductions being for investment into infrastructure such as stadium development, the youth academy, community initiatives and women’s teams. For Villa, that was at £24m in 2022/23, and an estimated £27m for 2023/24, making £51m.
Using that same sum, the combined £200m-plus in losses would have been reduced to £149m in terms of a PSR calculation for those two years.
According to the estimates, Villa could lose £17m for 2024/25, with allowable deductions of £27m, and still be PSR compliant. However, what the estimates didn’t account for was how much Villa would, and still could, earn from the Champions League. Nor did it bake in the Duran profit, something that occurred before the Swiss Ramble report was produced.
The January window, and what the club has achieved, and continues to achieve, in Europe, will deliver significant profits, although other associated costs will rise, likely reflected in a larger wage bill as a result of bonus payments and the increased cost of acquiring players from Champions League clubs.
Villa likely stand a decent chance of keeping themselves under the PSR threshold once again, but what will be the knock-on effect is that they won’t be able to reinvest the Champions League revenue and Duran profit into the first team in a way they may have wanted to, although there will be some room to strengthen. Further player trading will likely occur during the summer, though.
However, the club’s banner year in Europe, and the potential for Champions League qualification again for next season, either via the league or the competition itself, would very much put the club on track to dramatically turnaround their financial picture in much the same way that Arsenal have done.
Consistent participation in the Champions League is the key to changing financial fortunes in the quickest possible time, but it is a challenge to do that when you aren’t able to spend on the competitive aspect at the same level as your rivals.
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