The Premier League has slapped Aston Villa with a £125,000 for multiple breaches of a rule nobody thinks about.

Villa have been sanctioned for breaking rules around misuse of the multiball system, the Premier League announced on Friday.

“The Premier League has entered into a sanction agreement with Aston Villa FC after the club accepted it had breached the Premier League’s multiball rules,” read Friday’s statement.

“Clubs are required to adopt a multiball system at every League match and adherence to the relevant rules and guidance is of vital importance to maintain consistency and, crucially, to ensure that home clubs do not gain a competitive advantage through their misuse of the system.”

Grantham Town wouldn’t stand a chance.

Villa’s multiball misuse charge

The sanction agreement is public and states that the Premier League found that the ‘Ball Assistants’ acted deliberately and under instruction to “attempt to affect passages of play” to Villa’s benefit. The charge relate to five Premier League home fixtures in the 2024/25 season:

• Manchester United in October, after which Villa claimed the club’s Ball Assistants were confused about what was required having just played in the Champions League
• AFC Bournemouth in October, after which Villa’s response was that they’d spoken to the Ball Assistants individually and recirculated the rules
• Crystal Palace in November, after which Villa accepted that the process around corners had fallen short but celebrated better multiball use with regard to throw-ins – yay!
• Brentford in December, after which Villa provided no observations
• Tottenham Hotspur in May, Villa’s fifth breach and the one that made the Premier League too angry to just throw fines in their direction

The agreed sanctions are the aforementioned £125,000 fine and that Villa will be prohibited from operating the multiball system in the first three home games of the new season against Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and Fulham, whatever that means.

Given that the statement itself points out that the multiball system was brought in to maintain the flow of matches and improve the fan experience, the second part of the sanction is quite bizarre.

What does it mean? Will there only be one ball at a time? Will the Premier League send a crack team of impartial Ball Superassistants to operate multiball on Villa’s behalf? Tune in on Saturday lunchtime to find out!

Villa have also agreed to ‘review and amend’ procedures in order to prevent further breaches. Rules are rules, you guys.

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