Creative Accounting?

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.

"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."

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.

Or even better, make up new rules that only punish Everton for having done it.

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.

I doubt the previous clowns that were running the football club were aware of the possibility.

I hate it.

That 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?

Just a thought, however stupid it might be.

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.

If Chelsea can do it with hotels then why not Goodison?

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.

Expenditure on women's football, including I assume going forward Goodison Park, is excluded from PSR calculations.

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.

That's the most likely of outcomes.

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 !