Tom Keane
Tom Keane
Newcastle United's reluctant decision to sell Elliot Anderson to comply with PSR rules even left Manchester United's former head of football negotiations 'sad'.
Tom Keane admitted it was a 'bit of a shame' that the regulations make it 'more valuable' for clubs to move on young players after Newcastle dashed to raise funds last summer to avoid a breach. Although Newcastle managed to avoid losing one of their star names - Liverpool previously held talks about Anthony Gordon - the Magpies ultimately had to sell Anderson to Nottingham Forest and Yankuba Minteh to Brighton.
Eddie Howe felt 'very uncomfortable' doing so while Darren Eales suggested it was 'a bit perverse' that clubs were 'incentivised' to trade talents like Anderson because of the pure profit on offer as Keane touched upon.
"You grow up supporting your team and your dream as a lad is to play for your team, but then if you can't do that, you want to see someone you can relate to doing it," he told the Overlap. "Newcastle won the Carabao Cup and Elliot Anderson was in the crowd. It's insane. It's a bit sad to see, really.
"He's a really good player. Eddie Howe didn't want to sell him but the way the rules were meant that he was sold.
"Because he was an academy player, he had no underlying cost to the club so when they sell him, that is banked as a profit on the PSR balance sheet. If you bought a player for £35m and then you sold him a couple of years later, you're only banking that little bit of profit that sits on top so it's more valuable to sell homegrown players, which is a bit of a shame."
Senior figures at the club have repeatedly stressed they do not want to find themselves in that perilous situation again, but Newcastle are now in a much stronger PSR position going into the summer. In fact, Howe even suggested it was Newcastle who would try to use it 'to our advantage if we can' as other clubs race to raise funds before June 30.