Aston Villa repeat Chelsea trick in bid to comply with PSR rules by selling the women’s team | OneFootball

Aston Villa have become the latest Premier League club to restructure ownership of their assets to comply with the Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

According to the Telegraph, the Villains have agreed to sell their women’s team to their parent company, V Sports, founded by club owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris.

Chelsea made the same controversial move, selling their women’s side to BlueCo last year. The decision helped the London club declare a pre-tax profit of £128.4 million.

Villa women’s sale to V Sports has been agreed in principle and will likely appear in the 2024/25 financial accounts.

The transaction offers a timely financial boost following losses of £195 million over the past two years and helps avoid any breach of PSR limits.

Under the Profit and Sustainability Rules of the Premier League, clubs can make losses of up to £105 million over three years.

Villa believe this move will allow them to retain key players such as Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers.

The move comes just after the June 30 accounting deadline and raises further debate around clubs repositioning assets within ownership groups to generate book value.

Like Chelsea’s sale of two Stamford Bridge hotels last year, such moves exploit a loophole Premier League clubs declined to close at their annual general meeting.

Only 11 of the 20 voted to tighten the regulations.

The Villa women finished sixth in the Women’s Super League this season, following a ninth-place finish last term.

They will remain under the V Sports umbrella, which also holds stakes in Vitoria SC (Portugal) and Real Union (Spain), the latter part-owned by manager Unai Emery.

Despite offloading fringe players and trying to terminate Philippe Coutinho’s contract, Villa remain under financial pressure.

However, the club will be mining every asset possible to stay competitive on and off the pitch.