Richard Masters Todd Boehly Chelsea
(Credit: Imago/Getty Images)
Stefan Borson
Sun 8 June 2025 10:47, UK
Premier League officials have suffered a major blow in their attempts to close the loophole Chelsea have exploited over the past couple of years.
The Premier League was looking to hold a vote to prevent clubs from selling assets to sister companies at the annual meeting of the 20 top-flight sides earlier this week.
However, The Times reported on 4 June the proposal didn’t even go to a vote after it became clear there was not enough support in the room for the motion to pass.
The Premier League moved to close the loophole last year, but it didn’t receive the 14 votes required to change the rules.
Chelsea sold their women’s team to owners BlueCo last summer for around £200million, helping them turn their previous £90million loss for 2022-23 into a £128million profit for 2023-24.
That came after the London giants sold two Stamford Bridge hotels to their owners in 2023 for a total of £70.5million to avoid a spending breach for 2022-23.
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Under the profit and sustainability rules (PSR), top-flight sides can lose a maximum of £105million over a rolling three-year period.
Finance expert Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider PSR is “completely dead” if clubs can bypass the rules through an intra-group sale.
It has been revealed Aston Villa are also exploring selling stakes in their women’s team to help them comply with the spending rules for 2024-25.
PL TABLE CHELSEA
Chelsea finished fourth in the Premier League table (Credit: Hasan Karim – Breaking Media)
Premier League slammed after Chelsea twist
Borson insisted the Premier League has gone about its attempts to close the Chelsea loophole in the wrong way.
He told Football Insider: “They didn’t get it through last year.
“But once you’ve not got it through last year and then Chelsea have done what they’ve done in terms of doing the deal, then of course nobody’s going to support it this year.
“Why would you support it this year? The only team that might support it this year would be Chelsea to close the door on everybody else doing it because they’ve done it.
“You have just got to question some of the judgment around not bringing it straight back last year or finding a form of words they knew would get the vote through.
“And also the judgment to say we won’t bring it back all season and we’ll bring it back at the end of the year, but then we won’t do the lobbying beforehand to make sure that it even gets to a vote, none of that makes sense. That is not the way it should work.
“Look, the reality is if you’ve got that rule that allows all the major clubs to effectively move the women’s team from one part of the business to another, then PSR is basically dead.
“We know that it was probably dead anyway because of the change to the squad cost control and the other things that look like the Uefa rules that are coming in apparently maybe at some point.
“So, we know it was already dead, but it’s completely dead if you can just bypass the whole thing by an intra-group transfer.”
Richard Masters
Premier League chief Richard Masters has been hit by a new Chelsea blow (Credit: Getty Images)
Chelsea and Aston Villa have breached financial rules
The Premier League’s spending rules are not the only issue facing clubs at this moment in time, with Chelsea and Villa both expected to have breached Uefa’s squad cost ratio (SCR) rules in 2024.
Clubs in European competitions were required to keep spending on player wages and fees to 80 per cent of revenue last year.
Chelsea’s overall revenue fell from £513million in 2022-23 to £469million in 2023-24, while their wage bill dropped from £404million to £338million.
Villa posted a club-record revenue in 2023-24 after their turnover surged from £217.7million in 2022-23 to £275.7million, but the club’s wages increased from £194million to £252million across the same period.
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