Premier League record goalscorer Alan Shearer has slammed the league’s profit and sustainability rules.
Aston Villa and Newcastle United, Shearer’s old club as both a player and manager, have been frustrated in the transfer market, a situation exacerbated by the teams that finished above them in last season’s final standings being able to spend freely this summer.
“PSR doesn’t sit easy with me. I don’t like it,” Shearer said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“You can get to a certain point, like Newcastle and Aston Villa have, where all of a sudden a juggernaut is then in front of you. How do you get past that? You look at the top four from last year and what they have gone on to spend.
“Now look at the position that Villa are in, not being able to spend a lot. Evann Guessand is in for around €30m, but the sale of Jacob Ramsey will cover that. They are in the situation now that Newcastle was in last season. If the laws or rules were to change now, they would have to put the leverage down.”
Villa have made no secret of the fact that their owners are eager to invest in the playing squad and feel they are being held back by PSR, UEFA financial regulations and the restrictions placed upon Villa by the European governing body subsequent to a breach of its rules.
As well as limitations on the buying side, the financial framework has put Villa in a position where they’ve had to sell players against their wishes. This reached a breaking point when Jacob Ramsey, a Villa-supporting academy product but probably the player from whom Villa could most profit, was moved on to Newcastle.
The Magpies were the buying club on this occasion but the situation is not dissimilar to their sale of Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest last year. All other things being equal, Eddie Howe and Newcastle didn’t want to sell him.
Football shouldn’t be about competitive accounting and its rules aren’t fit for purpose if they incentivise otherwise unwanted sales of academy players. It doesn’t benefit clubs from a sporting point of view and their connection with the fans is weakened with every transfer motivated by the rules rather than football.
While Villa and Newcastle are looking to make progress in their own very different ways, their ability to build and maintain competitive squads is being limited while clubs like Manchester United, whose revenue is and always will outstrip theirs, can spend with reckless abandon despite being a shambles in every conceivable aspect.
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