Premier League clubs – including Aston Villa – have used ‘swap deals’ to navigate around their PSR concerns and Stan Collymore has given his verdict on the situation.
Aston Villa have been hard at work accumulating funds to ensure they don’t fall foul of PSR rules ahead of the deadline on June 30th.
Unai Emery has reluctantly allowed Douglas Luiz to Juventus, with the Spaniard receiving two players in return; deep-lying playmaker Enzo Barrenchea and talented winger Samuel Iling-Junior.
The Villans have also carried out ‘swap deals’ with other clubs in the Premier League, whereby swapping players who progressed through their academies.
This has seen Tim Ireogbunham join Everton, with Lewis Dobbin joining Villa in a separate deal, while it is expected that Emery will sign Ian Maatsen from Chelsea and Omari Kellyman will transfer to Stamford Bridge, again in a separate deal.
It’s a strategy that has caused concerns to fellow top-flight sides, and the Premier League have now written to clubs expressing their concerns.
Stan Collymore reacts as Premier League send warning to Aston Villa
The Premier League’s major concern with these deals is that clubs are only doing these transfers to exploit a loophole in PSR ahead of Monday’s deadline.
Clubs have been able to get themselves out of the areas of PSR by selling academy talents for ‘pure profit’ to avoid any breaches.
This didn’t go down well with the league’s governing body, who claimed that part of the transfer fee would have to be sent back if they decided that it was ‘inflated’.
Finance expert Adam Williams gave his view on the situation, claiming Villa and the other clubs haven’t broken any rules as long as the deals are fair value, while former striker Stan Collymore believes that the rules are broken and the Birmingham outfit shouldn’t need to sell their academy players to comply with PSR.
Writing in his column for Caught Offside, Collymore said: “I don’t like it. I don’t like what I’ve seen with clubs moving around the likes of Omari Kellyman, Lewis Dobbin, and Ian Maatsen to sidestep PSR regulations.
“I don’t like the fact clubs have to sit around a table and go, “Ah! This might work!”. I support one of the oldest clubs in world football. Aston Villa started the football league, so there’s a historical element of wanting the club to act in an appropriate manner and set the standard.
“Without PSR in the picture, Aston Villa could spend serious money on players. They wouldn’t be able to blow £1bn on a footballer, but you’d certainly see something in the range of £20-150m, if they so choose.
“However, the notion that we now breed players that have an affinity with the club, and might have been there for a long time, to give them to another club and we receive that club’s youngsters in return – it goes to show how broken the system is.”
Aston Villa’s plans for the rest of the transfer window
Once the sale of Luiz to Juve goes through, they will no longer be hamstrung by PSR concerns and that will be a relief to Emery and Monchi, who have worked extremely hard ahead of the deadline.
Villa have done well to agree on deals for several talented players as it’s only a matter of time before Barrenchea, Iling-Junior, Ross Barkley and Maatsen are donning claret and blue.
The above quartet will add something different to Emery’s competitive squad and the Spaniard doesn’t plan on stopping there.
Recent links to Michael Kayode and the January signing of Kosta Nedeljkovic suggest that he’s eyeing up a long-term replacement for Matty Cash, who has been linked with a move to AC Milan.
Aside from improvements at right-back, Villa want a new centre-back as last term they conceded 61 goals in 38 matches.
On top of that, a new striker is on the radar as it’s becoming increasingly likely that Jhon Duran will move on, especially with emerging interest from Milan and Bologna.
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