Premier League clubs to vote on player spending rule opposed by Aston Villa as threat made
Premier League clubs can vote through new financial rules on Thursday despite the threat of legal action from the Professional Footballers’ Association if they do so.
They also run the risk of implementing a change of player spending guidelines already opposed by Aston Villa and the two Manchester clubs, United and City.
The 20 top-flight teams will gather for a meeting in central London to discuss, and potentially vote on, a new system to replace the existing - and controversial - profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).
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Two new mechanisms are under consideration. The first are the squad cost rules (SCR), which would limit clubs to spending no more than 85 per cent of revenue on squad-related costs, similar to the approach already taken at European level by UEFA where clubs will be limited to spending 70 per cent of revenue on squad costs from next season.
The second - and the one particularly opposed by Villa, United and City - is top-to-bottom anchoring (TBA), which would effectively create a hard spending cap by limiting squad-related spending to five times the amount received in central league income by the Premier League’s bottom club.
The PFA’s lawyers warned their Premier League counterparts last week they would commence legal proceedings if the new rules were voted through, or if they failed to receive a written undertaking from the league to properly consult them on the rules, which the union believes will have a material impact on players’ wages.
The Premier League pushed back strongly against the PFA’s claims that it had not consulted properly.
Last March, Villa, United and City all voted against a further exploration of TBA amid concerns that a hard cap would impair their ability to compete for top talent with their European rivals.
The argument in favour of anchoring is that it protects competitive balance at a time when European and global competitions are expanding, allowing the top clubs to further stretch their revenue.
Clubs spoken to by the PA news agency have expressed nervousness around both mechanisms, and there may be a reluctance to change any rules related to revenue on Thursday while Manchester City’s challenges to the associated party transaction (APT) rules remain ongoing.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters wrote to clubs last week to inform them about City’s latest challenge, which is centred on amendments to the APT rules voted through last November.
The league and City are also awaiting clarification of an earlier verdict given by an arbitration panel last October on the APT rules.
The panel found aspects of the rules unlawful. City’s position is that all the APT rules are therefore void, whereas the Premier League argues that the ruling required discrete elements of the rules to be remedied, which it believes has now been achieved.
The APT rules are designed to ensure that commercial deals – now including shareholder loans – linked to a club’s owners are done for fair market value.
Under the current spending rules clubs can be charged by the Premier League for breaching the PSR limit of £105m in losses over three years. Everton and Nottingham Forest both had points deductions imposed last season for doing so, and the likes of Villa and Manchester United were said to be at risk of doing so ahead of the latest accounting deadline in December.
However, Villa took significant action in the summer to ensure they remained on the right side of the PSR numbers, selling the likes of Douglas Luiz and Moussa Diaby for big fees while also engaging in a series of deals involving younger players before June 30.
However, although the club is in the clear for now, Unai Emery and Co will need to remain vigilant going forward as Villa’s spending will remain under scrutiny.
