£100m Leeds United reveal hands transfer boost to Aston Villa, Chelsea, Tottenham and Newcastle | OneFootball

Leeds United will need to sell up to £100 million worth of players in the summer to avoid breaching EFL spending rules, if they don't win the play-offs, and Crysencio Summerville is a likely asset to be sold in a boost to Aston Villa, Chelsea, Tottenham, and Newcastle United among others, according to the latest reports.

The Championship play-off final is known as the most lucrative domestic football match in the world. Prior to the 2020 version of the match at Wembley, Deloitte reported that the winning team would receive between £135 million and £265 million, depending on whether they avoided relegation in their first season in the Premier League.

That number has almost certainly gone up as the most recent domestic deal to broadcast top flight games in this country was worth a record £6.7 billion, as per ESPN.

The financial gains are obvious for whichever of Leeds, Southampton, West Bromwich Albion or Norwich City end up winning that final game of the season, at the home of English football, but it seems like there's going to be big consequences on the Whites, financially, if they don't emerge as the victors.

Leeds will have to sell £100m of players if they don't win the play-offs

The Daily Mail has reported that the Yorkshire club will need to offload players to generate around nine figures of income if they don't manage to get past Norwich and beat one of the Saints or the Baggies in the play-off final, in order to avoid breaching the EFL's financial regulation laws.

They added that people from top flight clubs have said that they expect a "fire sale," by United if they fail to win promotion.

The 49ers Enterprise took control of the club last summer, and inherited a poor fiscal situation which had been left by previous owner Andrea Radrizzani.

The clubs most recent set of accounts showed that they had made a £106 million loss, as per the Daily Mail, which had been reduced to £34 million by the sales of Kalvin Phillips to Manchester City and Raphinha to Barcelona.

First on the list of potential departures could be Championship Player of the Season award winner Summerville, who has Villa, Chelsea, Spurs and Newcastle among his suitors.

The Daily Mail believe that he could bring in over £30 million for Leeds if they sell him in the summer, and that other high-value assets like Wilfried Gnonto and Archie Gray could also go.

Sources told the outlet that up to 10 players could leave, and they would be replaced by loans and free agent signings.

Promotion via the play-offs wouldn't necessarily cure the club's financial problems, but it would certainly act as a medicine, helping them to get by.

Leeds financial news adds more pressure to Norwich second leg

The play-offs haven't been a happy, successful place for Leeds; in fact, quite the opposite. They haven't won the post-season knockout mini-tournament once in the five times that they have been involved in it.

The ghosts of years gone by still lurk over the Whites, with the most recent ones coming from 2019. Some say that if you walk past the away changing rooms when it is deadly silent, you can still hear the ironic signing of 'Stop crying, Frank Lampard'.

Leeds could end up being not just the first team to reach 90 or more points and not win automatic promotion, but the first side to not get promoted from the second tier at all after amassing that number.

That is a serious weight they have to carry, and the fiscal position of the club just goes on top of the already burdening pile of worries. It's now just about whether the team is strong enough to overcome this weight.