Chelsea have seemingly always wanted to buy Omari Kellyman, haven't they? I mean, that's the reason they are now paying £19million for the 18-year-old...
In modern football, beating the books and finding financial loopholes can save clubs millions, but why are the likes of Newcastle, Aston Villa, Everton and Wolves doing what appear to be dodgy deals to save face?
Ian Maatsen, Lewis Hall, Omari Kellyman, Lewis Dobbin, the key word here is pure profit, something which these clubs are using to tie up loose ends and kick the can down the road to help them when the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability Rulings knock at the door.
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Academy players are being used to help teams in the Premier League this summer, in a trend that is growing more popular as each week passes. Maatsen's move to Villa Park was counter-acted by Kellyman heading the other way, as both Villa and Chelsea seemingly shook hands and walked away with a dodgy deal.
But it isn't the players that matter in the situation, it is their inflated transfer values that are starting to irk fellow footballing fans. Their brand-new loophole means as the June 30 deadline approaches, profit from the sale of their once blue-eyed star can be used to help PSR stay away from at least another season.
Newcastle United's squeaky-clean owners are also now getting involved, with the Magpies and Everton talking about possible deals for Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Yankuba Minteh. This book-balancing act may seem clever on the surface, but is this really what modern football has come to?
“These are mutually beneficial transfers in the sense we have five or six clubs who ideally want to get a profit from some source before 30 June,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire recently explained via i. “Let’s say we’ve got two clubs with players worth £8m and £10m respectively, who are promising players but don’t have much experience. You could swap those two players with a cash transfer of £2m from one club to the other.
“If we assume those two players are academy players, one team books a profit of £8m and the other books £10m. What could be happening instead is both clubs are saying: ‘Well, let’s make it £18m and £20m and the cash transfer is still £2m but we’re both booking much bigger profits and it just so happens that those profits are just enough to keep you inside the PSR limit.”
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