Snak

Shocking exclusive shows £76.6m sale which gives Chelsea monster transfer boost
By SuperFrank - 7th Jun 2024, 08:30am

The Premier League and its rules have become the focus in the last couple of weeks with the season over and various votes taking place on rule changes ahead of next year.

Freedom to operate this summer

For all that we’ve questioned the new Chelsea ownership’s football acumen, we’ve never had any doubts that they were going to find the gaps and weaknesses in the rules and exploit them well – or at least in a way which is defensible legally.

This is another classic example, and explains a lot of the frantic spending of last summer. If it’s true that PSR concerns are really not on the table this summer that opens up a lot of options on the footballing side. Instead of pushing sales to before the June 30th deadline that has been the focus for so long, it may now suit us to have our sales after, helping us get to work on next season’s losses

Alongside that, details have come out from David Ornstein in the Athletic about the financial sleight of hand that Chelsea pulled off last year, selling two hotels and a car park at Stamford Bridge from one company controlled by the ownership to another, magically conjuring some income which could offset their transfer spending and keep us within spending limits in 2022-2023.

The £76.5m deal took a huge chunk out of our losses, and explained some decisions like moving the sale of Lewis Hall to this season’s accounting period. The Premier League attempted a vote to get this loophole closed, but it failed – because the wording of the new proposed rule was too broad, according to Ornstein.

Premier League fail to close FFP loophole after controversial Chelsea deal
Premier League held vote to ban clubs from using one-off profits to aid PSR reports
Chelsea attracted controversy after £76.5m sale of its own hotels to a sister company
Vote failed to receive enough support

The Premier League have failed with an attempt to ban clubs from using profits from sales of club assets in their Financial Fair Play submissions.

Chelsea attracted major controversy after selling two hotels to a sister company of the BlueCo 22 ownership group for £76.5m - a deal which allowed them to fall back under the threshold for 2022/23´s financial reports.

As noted by The Athletic, only 11 out of the required 14 clubs supported the Premier League´s attempts to close the loophole, meaning clubs remain free to use such sales to boost their efforts to avoid falling foul of Profit and Sustainability Rules.

This is the second time the Premier League have raised the idea of closing this loophole. The English Football League banned the use of such profits after a rise in cases in 2021, but officials from the top flight did not receive enough interest from clubs to actually put it to a vote at the time.

A formal vote was held on Thursday but was once again shot down amid concerns over the specific nature of the proposed ban.

It is believed that the wording used by the Premier League led to a divide among clubs, with some fearing it did not distinguish between "the type of non-football revenues that clubs believe they should be encouraged to exploit, such as building hotels, houses or indoor arenas, and the accountancy tricks of selling existing property to yourself".

A renewed push from the league to close this loophole is expected soon but, as it stands, Premier League teams remain free to use the sales of assets like stadiums, training ground and hotels to boost their profits.

Thursday´s vote also included an informal agreement to trial a new "anchoring" system which is designed to prevent the richest clubs from aggressively outspending those around them.

Spending money will be tied to the amount of media and sponsorship income raised by the team who finishes bottom of the division, although the system is not expected to be formally introduced until the results of next season´s trial are analysed.

Sky Sports understands Chelsea will need to make sales to keep in line with PSR for the 2024/2025 season, and the cut off for that is next summer, but they are under no pressure to sell this month.

Chelsea will not need to sell players this month to comply with Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) but will need to before next year’s deadline.

Sky Sports had previously reported that Chelsea were among some Premier League clubs who may need to sell players before the June 30 deadline, but Chelsea insist this is not the case.