The Premier League has not charged any clubs for breaches of Profitability and Sustainability Rules last season, however Leicester City remain at risk pending the outcome of their ongoing legal case.
The club are still involved in a legal dispute with the league over its jurisdiction relating to the 2022-23 season and that has to reach a conclusion before any new charges can be brought. Leicester won the initial case in September but the league has appealed.
All other top-flight clubs have been declared to be compliant after submitting their 2023-24 accounts before the December 31 deadline.
The Premier League said in a statement: “Issues as to the jurisdiction of the Premier League over Leicester City Football Club in relation to PSR [Profitability and Sustainability Rules] compliance are currently the subject of confidential arbitration proceedings.
“Accordingly, neither the league nor the club will make any further comment at this stage about any aspect of the club’s compliance or otherwise with any of the PSR or related rules, save to say that no complaint has been brought against Leicester by the league for any breach of the PSRs for the period ending Season 2023-24.”
In September, Leicester won a legal challenge on the basis that the Premier League did not have jurisdiction after they had been relegated in 2023. The club said they had identified “flaws” in the Premier League rules.
Clubs can be charged by the Premier League for breaching the PSR limit of £105million in losses over three years. Everton and Nottingham Forest both had points deductions imposed last season.
A number of top-flight clubs who might have been at risk of breaching the limit were involved in a series of interlocking transfers before June 30 which enabled them to bank profits. For example Chelsea signed Omari Kellyman for £19million from Aston Villa despite the 19-year-old having made just two Premier League appearances, with Chelsea’s academy product Ian Maatsen, 22, going the other way for £37.5million.
-Chelsea also sold their the women’s team to the club’s parent company on June 28, two days before the end of their financial year, for an undisclosed sum.
In the case involving the dispute over jurisdiction, Leicester were charged by the Premier League with breaching the PSR limit by £24.4million for the three years up to 2022-23, and made losses for the last two years of £92.5million and £90million.
Spending on infrastructure, youth and women’s football can be deducted from any losses but the football finance expert Kieron O’Connor, who writes the blog Swiss Ramble, estimated the club would be over the limit for 2023-24 by around £12million.
The £35million-a-year PSR loss limit is reduced by £22million to £13million for each year a club is in the EFL but it has been pointed out this week that the Premier League’s rules for that only appear to apply to the first two years of the three-year period, so that Leicester and other clubs newly promoted from the Championship could claim £35million losses for last season. However, the legal case between the league and the club needs to be resolved before any new PSR calculations are pursued.
Meanwhile, a separate case involving Everton relating to the 2022-23 accounts and £6.5million the club claims “related to interest payments which were directly attributable to the club’s new stadium” remains ongoing. A disciplinary commission which deducted Everton two points last April decided to deal with that issue in a separate hearing which has yet to be concluded more than nine months later.
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