Season › 2024-25 › Opinion › Talking Points Creative Accounting? by Bobby Mallon | 01/07/2025 18 Comments [Jump to last] I have just read that Aston Villa are the next club to sell their women’s team to a sister company for £60M to avoid PSR limits. Why are we not doing the same thing with our women’s team? Or better still, with Goodson Park? Do the Friedkin group have a sister company? When are Everton going to get with their accounting? Return to Talking Points index : Add your Comments » Reader Comments (18) Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer () Ray Robinson 1 Posted 30/06/2025 at 15:51:05 Considering that today is the closing date for 16 of the 20 Premier League Clubs' 2024-25 accounts for PSR calculations (Burnley's is end of July), how come there haven't been more last-minute fire sales to guarantee compliance? If Villa do sell their women's team to themselves, doesn't it have to be completed by midnight tonight? Weren't Villa, United and Newcastle up against PSR limits? What's changed today to improve their situation? Are we to see a flurry of backdated transfers announced tomorrow when the majority of clubs enter a new accounting year?I thought that I had a reasonable grasp of accountancy principles but the whole farce leaves me bamboozled. Michael Kenrick 2 Posted 01/07/2025 at 07:44:16 Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, speaking to BBC Radio Merseyside about whether Everton could sell their women's team to help with PSR rules: "There has been a new company which has been formed."Everton Football Club Women Limited has been in existence for over a decade, but it looks as if the new owners have set up a company which is linked to the women's team."Could it be that the current owners of Everton Football Club Women, which is Everton Football Club itself, could sell Everton FC Women to this new company which has been set up?"You might say: 'Hold on, well surely that's just transferring things from the left hand to the right hand and overall we're no better off or there's no change?' But in the world of accounting it's very different."It could be this is being done for strategic, planning or tax reasons - or lots of other things."On the basis that Chelsea's women's team was sold for 20 times the amount of revenue it generated, if you take a look at the most recent accounts for Everton's women's team, that means you could probably sell that football club for somewhere in the region of £60-65m and if that was the case that would be pure profit - which goes into your PSR budget and would enhance the ability of Everton to compete in the transfer market." Ian Bennett 3 Posted 01/07/2025 at 08:07:01 Not much of a finance expert, is he? There's no tax impact of transferring from left pocket to right pocket. It's called group exemption.You might be able to shuffle profit around the group, but if it's the same owner, the tax man couldn't give a monkey's.This is just a PSR wheeze. Surprised Uefa aren't pushing back on it. We know the Premier League is complicit on these things. Eric Myles 4 Posted 01/07/2025 at 08:10:57 They better get it done sharpish or Masters will block us from doing it.Or even better, make up new rules that only punish Everton for having done it. Danny O'Neill 5 Posted 01/07/2025 at 08:22:32 He doesn't go into specifics, Ian @2, he just says it could be for tax reasons, which could mean he is alluding to what you say.He's written a book on the subject: "The Price of Football", which I haven't read. I probably won't as the subject bores me when it goes into detail. Brendan McLaughlin 6 Posted 01/07/2025 at 08:58:29 It seems strange that Everton haven't opted to do this before now given we've breached PSR twice in recent years. Ryan Holroyd 7 Posted 01/07/2025 at 09:02:59 Brendan,I doubt the previous clowns that were running the football club were aware of the possibility. Paul Hewitt 8 Posted 01/07/2025 at 09:16:19 Football has become utterly corrupt. I hate it. Brendan McLaughlin 9 Posted 01/07/2025 at 09:29:10 Ha ha Ryan #6That thought did occur to me but Chelsea as far as I am aware are the only club to have gone down this road.Reading it again and if Maguire is to believed... Chelsea sold their women's team to themselves for twenty times the revenue the women's team were generating.Perhaps if the women's team isn't generating sufficient revenue... it's simply not an option worth pursuing? Stu Gre 10 Posted 01/07/2025 at 12:30:27 Is it possible that Friedkin is looking at the Women's team as a help for PSR, don't know much about the finances or any of the accounting but the rise in the women's game and Everton Women playing at Goodison might be a money spinner – particularly on the back of the Euros? Just a thought, however stupid it might be. Martin Farrington 11 Posted 01/07/2025 at 12:49:57 Chelsea are exploiting loopholes and getting away with it.This particular one was brought up halfway through the season to be closed, but (sensibly) most clubs said it should be a new rule brought in for the forthcoming season.Chelsea sold to a "sister" company. However, they are a treble-winning WSL side who also won the FA Cup. Spending heavily on players. They made a loss last accounting year but are no longer on Chelsea's books, but the sale got Chelsea out of a PSR breach. There are no comparisons in women's football for selling teams, Chelsea being the only ones to do it. This loophole will get closed. My worry is that, if we don't, we will have the problem of Goodison.We left it because it wasn't cost-effective to run nor cost-effective to modernise, with maintenance costing a fortune. Now we have plonked our Women's team in the money pit,two things have to happen. We sell the women's team to say a company called TFG-1. Goodison miraculously becomes a profitable stadium, no longer expensive to run. Failing to do so may well lead to us to Points Deduction 3.0. Bobby Mallon 12 Posted 01/07/2025 at 12:50:22 Well if not the women's team, then Goodison itself. If Chelsea can do it with hotels then why not Goodison? Danny O'Neill 13 Posted 01/07/2025 at 12:53:36 I don't think it's stupid, Stu.Arsenal women have had crowds of nearly 50,000, over 50,000 and a sell-out of 60,000 in the past 3 seasons.I understand that initially there will be some cosmetics, covering up the upper tiers, only leaving the lower tiers and Park End open. Despite my initial reticence, in hindsight, this feels like a good move. I still think over time, there will need to be some sort of restructuring but, although not to everyone's taste, the women's game is growing season on season and the standard has improved a lot. Ian Bennett 14 Posted 01/07/2025 at 13:16:45 Everton voted to keep the Chelsea wheeze open on women's teams etc. Presumably with a eye on exploiting it. Brendan McLaughlin 15 Posted 01/07/2025 at 13:29:32 Martin #10,Expenditure on women's football, including I assume going forward Goodison Park, is excluded from PSR calculations. Alan J Thompson 16 Posted 01/07/2025 at 14:08:50 I thought the costs of the Academy, a new stadium and Women's Football were all excluded from PSR calculations so if our official ground is HD/BMD then would the cost of maintaining Goodison be excluded?I also thought that PSR was to be replaced by a system that wages should not exceed a percentage (75%?) of income.And what news of the Coronation Street of PSR and irregular sponsorships, the case against Manchester City? A friend in need is a friend that says go stuff yourself — we're showing you nothing. Derek Thomas 17 Posted 03/07/2025 at 06:10:30 Eric @ 4; That's the most likely of outcomes. Jack Convery 18 Posted 04/07/2025 at 09:50:19 I know we form a new company. However that only solves problem A. Well we can form a second new company and that solves problems B and C. But what about problems D to G. A 3rd new company it's simples. Good job we're accountants rather than football people.Don't you just love football administrators, more loop holes than a trawler net ! Ha Ha !!I have to say I don't like all this skullduggery. Money mad people ruining everything. it's SHIT ! Add Your Comments In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site. » Log in now Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site. How to get rid of these ads and support TW © ToffeeWeb