{"id":871728,"date":"2026-08-28T18:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871728\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T18:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:02:11","slug":"aston-villas-squad-is-crumbling-while-spurs-splash-out-are-the-financial-rules-fair-finances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871728\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa\u2019s squad is crumbling while Spurs splash out. Are the financial rules fair? | Finances"},"content":{"rendered":"

In theory Aston Villa supporters should have been rubbing their hands together at the prospect of a Champions League season. Equally, Tottenham fans could have been despondent after a relegation battle that went to the wire. A 17th-place finish meant Spurs earned about \u00a335m less in Premier League<\/a> merit payments, which are based on final league position, than Villa.<\/p>\n

Yet the mood in the two camps is reversed. Spurs have spent an estimated \u00a3322m in the transfer window, and that excludes the loan of Manchester City\u2019s Omar Marmoush, for whom they are committed to paying \u00a355m<\/a> after this season. Sales have reduced the outlay to a net \u00a3140m, but Spurs fans seemed buoyant, at least until the first match, when they were soundly thrashed<\/a> by one of the data scientists\u2019 teacher\u2019s pets, Brentford.<\/p>\n

Villa, on the other hand, have had a dispiriting summer in the transfer market. Morgan Rogers<\/a>, Ezri Konsa<\/a>, Youri Tielemans<\/a> are the headline departures, Chelsea have agreed a \u00a37.5m deal for Emiliano Mart\u00ednez<\/a> and a seemingly want-away Ollie Watkins<\/a> may follow, probably offsetting money expected to be spent before Tuesday\u2019s deadline, including on Nicolas Jackson and a centre\u2011half. Over the course of the past five seasons Villa\u2019s net spend on transfers is \u00a33m, the second lowest in the Premier League. Only the other data scientists\u2019 teacher\u2019s pets, Brighton, who beat Villa 4-0<\/a> last weekend, have had a lower net spend during that period.<\/p>\n

Villa have finished ahead of Spurs for the past four seasons \u2013 narrowly in the first two, then by 11 and 13 places. They are coming off a memorable campaign, having won the Europa League, as Spurs did a year earlier, and secured a top-four berth. But as the former Villa player and lifetime fan Gabby Agbonlahor says: \u201cHow can an Aston Villa<\/a> fan ever dream, in my lifetime, of fighting to lift the Premier League?\u201d<\/p>\n

Villa\u2019s owners are Nassef Sawiris, who according to Forbes is Egypt\u2019s richest man, and Wes Edens, the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and also a multibillionaire. The two bought Villa in 2018 when the club were in crisis under the ownership of Tony Xia. But unlike Chelsea under Roman Abramovich and Manchester City under Sheikh Mansour in the years before cost control rules, they have been limited in their ability to spend as much money as they wish on the club.<\/p>\n

Net transfer spending in the Premier League since summer 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

The reason behind the spending restrictions has been the cost control environment that operates under Uefa and the Premier League. Introduced nominally to reduce debt in European football, the initially named financial fair play (FFP) had nothing to do with fairness. The FFP rules were then, in a Windscale-to-Sellafield-style ceremony, renamed profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), and had little to do with profitability or sustainability.<\/p>\n

The rules encouraged the rise of the creative football accountant, masters of monetary chicanery, who were sometimes successful, occasionally not, at finding loopholes in the rulebook. These rules domestically meant that clubs could lose up to \u00a3105m over three years, subject to various adjustments.<\/p>\n

In 2023-24 Uefa announced a change to its rules, and the brave new world of squad cost ratios (SCR) was introduced. SCR limits a club\u2019s spending on squad costs to 70% of football revenue. Squad costs are defined as first\u2011team player wages, amortisation (transfer fees spread over the contract life, so a \u00a350m signing on a five-year deal has an amortisation cost of \u00a310m a year), impairment (don\u2019t ask unless you are studying an accounting course) and agent fees.<\/p>\n

Football revenue is in effect matchday ticket sales, broadcast income and commercial activities. It excludes the \u201cChelsea Way\u201d accounting method of selling club-owned real estate<\/a>, women\u2019s teams<\/a> and anything else owned by the club to another company controlled by the club owners to generate additional profit.<\/p>\n

The old cost control rules still operate in the background, limiting total losses for clubs in Uefa competitions to \u20ac60m over three years. The Premier League has followed suit<\/a>, except it allows the remainder of its clubs to spend 85% of football revenue on squad costs. The Premier League rules also have added to the football fan vocabulary phrases such as sustainability and systemic resilience, green and red thresholds and negative feedback loops (not the ones seen on social media after a weekend defeat).<\/p>\n

As a consequence, clubs have an incentive to generate as much revenue as possible, because for every \u00a3100 of revenue at least \u00a370 can be invested in the squad. Provided the money is spent well it gives the richer clubs an edge in terms of results. This is why Spurs have such an advantage over Villa and many other ambitious\/aspirational clubs in the Premier League such as Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Leeds and Everton. Daniel Levy, Spurs\u2019 much-maligned former chair, was visionary in the move from White Hart Lane to the Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> Stadium.<\/p>\n

Hosting NFL matches at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has helped to boost the club\u2019s revenue. Photograph: Ant Upton\/AP<\/p>\n

Spurs have been transformed from a football club to a multisport, multifunction entertainment group, which, importantly, has nearly all its profits from NFL matches, boxing bouts and summer concerts falling within the definition of football revenue.<\/p>\n

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The non-football events have proven so lucrative that Spurs are partly inoculated from a poor season on the pitch and\/or non-participation in Uefa competitions. Since the stadium move commercial revenue has increased from \u00a359m to \u00a3277m in 2024-25, a season in which Spurs played in the Europa League instead of the Champions League. Villa were in the Champions League with all the attention that brings but made \u00a398m from commercial activities.<\/p>\n

Spurs also have the benefit of London pricing. In 2024-25 the club generated an average of more than \u00a382 per fan per match, compared with Villa\u2019s \u00a338, again despite being in a less prestigious competition.<\/p>\n

Graphic showing average fan yield per match for Premier League club in 2024-25<\/a><\/p>\n

The difficulty for Villa is that to challenge for the Premier League or Champions League title they need to invest in players. If they spend too much they are subject to restrictions. Villa failed Uefa\u2019s rules and have been fined twice for breaches and forced to follow a business plan that curtails their ability to spend in the transfer market unless they first sell.<\/p>\n

A problem for them is that it has cost a lot to improve the squad, with the wage bill rising from \u00a3108m in 2019-20 to \u00a3273m in 2024-25, including bonuses for Champions League participation kicking in. This is big by the club\u2019s historical standards but still some way behind other members of the \u201cBig Six\u201d, who can offer attractive packages to Villa players.<\/p>\n

Villa generated \u00a3378m in revenue last time they were in the Champions League, and 70% of that is an SCR spend of \u00a3265m, but that compares with a \u00a3445m average SCR spend of the \u201cBig Six\u201d.<\/p>\n

Critics of the rules say that it creates a closed shop, because only those clubs who have big stadiums and associated commercial benefits can compete for the best talent, often sourced from clubs such as Villa. Agbonlahor sums it up: \u201cClubs should be allowed to go to the next level. It\u2019s very frustrating and very annoying to be a Villa fan at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kieran Maguire is professor of football finance at the University of Liverpool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In theory Aston Villa supporters should have been rubbing their hands together at the prospect of a Champions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-871728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}