Nassef Sawiris explodes after Aston Villa PSR developments are necessary evil
Aston Villa owner Nassef Sawiris is right to criticise PSR but the regulations are a necessary evil, according to Dan Plumley.
The Egyptian businessman has revealed his fury at the financial regulations the Premier League adopt, admitting he has considered legal action because they “do not make sense”.
PSR allows clubs to lose £105m over a three-year rolling period but Villa have been forced to sell Douglas Luiz to Juventus to comply despite reaching the UEFA Champions League, and football finance expert Plumley admits the owner has every right to be angry but explained why the regulations are needed for the wider game.
“He’s correct in the absolute sense of what he’s saying,” he exclusively told Villa News.
“The rules limit how much you can put into a club from an owner’s point of view, which then means there’s a loss going into that. It’s not the single cause factor, but what we have seen and a lot of the research, I’ve been involved in it at the university, tells us that there is something going on there between those regulations coming in and their competitive balance situation in the Premier League and in Europe.
“We’ve seen more of the top clubs dominating year on year, and it’s not as easy as saying that’s FFP’s fault or PSR or whatever we’re looking at, but it is one factor that contributes because you are saying to other clubs that you can’t catch up. That’s the problem, the gap has got bigger.
“So there is a point in there, however, the counterpoint is it’s okay for Villa to say that because they’ve got wealthy owners who are prepared to lose that money if they want to. If you imagine a world with no regulations, what that doesn’t do is protect the clubs around it and that goes back to, is it about clubs acting in self-interest or is about a group of clubs that make up the ecosystem.
“There has to be a balance there and I think that’s what the regulations do. That’s why we’re not going to now go back to a world with no financial regulation, that is partly in fact due to the ownership structures you’ve got.
“Not every club has an owner like Aston Villa that’s prepared to potentially lose hundreds of millions of pounds. What we shouldn’t be doing there is putting clubs at risk or making them try to do that to compete. It’s a really tricky one and that’s why we’re talking about it so much.
“He has a point and he hasn’t got a point in equal measures. There’s also the context of the league to look at and the wider clubs and how they should be working together perhaps more so than they do.”
Aston Villa must deal with financial challenges
PSR is a hurdle for a lot of clubs to clear, but the club found a loophole and by selling both Omari Kellyman to Chelsea and Tim Iroegbunam to Everton they were able to overcome their issues.
But the point that Sawiris is making is that it shouldn’t come down to that, and club owners should be able to spend whatever they wish to make their teams competitive rather than the status quo of the ‘Big Six’ being maintained.
Everyone knows that the rules favour certain teams over others, but Aston Villa have managed to break that by finishing in the top four despite those rules, and now must continue to execute their plan to find success.
It’s not easy and the rules are expected to change shortly, but for now, the club just have to get on with it and leave the excuses at home with the June 30 deadline gone and a fresh financial year ahead of them allowing them to spend more freely.
In other Aston Villa news, the club are “damned” after a £23.6m development emerged according to one finance expert.
For more Aston Villa news, follow us on Facebook or join our brand new WhatsApp Channel for instant updates to be sent straight to your phone.