Any one of five Newcastle United players could exit the club before the 30th June PSR deadline.
The end of the month coincides with the end of the current three-year Profit and Sustainability Rules assessment window.
That has left a handful of clubs including Newcastle, Everton, Aston Villa and Chelsea scrambling to get player sales over the line to meet the Premier League’s £105m loss limit.
Newcastle were unsuccessful in their bid to sell rising star Yankuba Minteh to Everton which would have seen Dominic Calvert-Lewin go the other way in a deal of roughly equivalent value.
The accounting sleight of hand, which works because of the difference in terms of how incoming and outgoing transfer fees are registered in a club’s accounts, is not a silver bullet, however.
And the latest analysis from a leading football finance experts suggests that two scenarios could unfold at Newcastle, with differing implications in terms of potential player sales.
Two categories of players could leave Newcastle
An in-depth analysis conducted world-renowned football finance writer Swiss Ramble has found that Newcastle need to generate £44m in player sale profit to dodge a PSR breach.
His forecast is based on revenue projections for the club, which total £300m.
However, in the comments of the article, Swiss Ramble conceded that his forecasts could be pessimistic and that commercial income and Champions League cash could bump up the final figure considerably.
The discrepancy, he argues, could be the difference betweenselling a top tier player like Alexander Isak and Bruno Guimaraes or a less valuable asset in Miguel Almiron or Callum Wilson.
Minteh, who is the subject of interest from Lyon, is also likely to fall within the former category given that the Magpies value him at around £40m.
That means there are five possible sales on the table ahead of the PSR deadline, depending on the scale of the figures Newcastle will release in their 2023-24 accounts.
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What will happen if Newcastle breach PSR?
In the punishments dished out to Nottingham Forest and Everton in 2023-24, Newcastle have a precedent in terms of what might happen if they fail to get the requisite sales done in time.
The punishment, which would come in the form of a fine and/or points deduction, would likely be proportionate to the scale of the offence.
If Newcastle are just a few million over the £105m loss limit, the sentence passed down will probably not be as severe as some supporters might fear.
However, without any way of knowing for sure how the Premier League’s independent commission would handle the case, the Magpies can’t afford to take chances.
Significantly, the Premier League is desperate to prove it can self-govern in order to water down the impact of the soon-to-be-implemented independent regulator for English football.