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Aston Villa may have done the hard part in winning promotion to the premiership, but that doesn’t mean the easy part is still to come, and although the £170M windfall that accompanies promotion will certainly help Villa aren’t out of the financial woods yet Bets.com.au reports today.
Villa who has really struggled financially during their last three years in the championship will be breathing a sigh of relief about finally making it to the premier league, not least because the injection of cash will help them financially where they have been struggling. Unless they go wildly over budget with trying to buy new players as well as secure the talent they already have then it is unlikely that they will breach the Premier League’s financial fair play rules, something that no club has done so far. However, there are still rumours about the club’s profitability and sustainability as it heads into premiership football next season.
The financial rules allow a football club to make a loss of up to £13M per season for a maximum of three seasons. Based on their last three seasons in the Championship Villa are already over that limit. And with financial figures for the current year due to published any day, it is not expected to be much better.
Rivals Birmingham City saw themselves getting punished by the EFL for breaching the financial rules and exceeding their losses by over £10M. This caused them to be docked nine points, and them and other championship clubs are calling for the same to happen to Villa in the premiership and are worried that this will not happen going forward.
Discussions are currently being held between the Premier League and the EFL about the lack of consistency in the application of sanctions to clubs that breach financial regulations. In particular, it is felt that the Premier League would be very loath to impose a points penalty on a club that has only just been promoted to the premier league.
Inside sources at the EFL said that there is a genuine concern that rules that are designed to be applied consistently across all divisions and teams in the league are being violated when it comes to the Premier League.
Championship teams are worried that the wrong message is being sent when clubs escape punishment by being promoted. It seems to suggest that promotion at all costs is completely acceptable. Particularly if the only sanctions handed down are fines which are easily offset by the windfall that teams get for reaching the premiership.
Earlier this year Aston Villa admitted that it would continue to be a significant challenge for the club to ensure that their company accounts were in compliance with the EFL’s spending rules. However, club directors continued to state that they believed that the club would be able to meet the spending restrictions imposed by the league. Saying that they had imposed a number of measures themselves to ensure that they would be in compliance with the rules.