Premier League to proceed with vote on APT rules despite Villa's call to delay | Villa Aston

He first division has told Aston Villa that it plans to go ahead with a vote to amend financial rules on Friday despite the club asking for it to be postponed.

The league has been consulting for more than a month with clubs about changes to its rules on associated party transactions (APT) after an arbitration panel found aspects of them illegal. Clubs will vote on those changes at a league meeting in central London on Friday, even though Manchester City, whose legal challenge to the rules led to the arbitration panel being convened, warned that the amendments should not be approved. hurriedly.

Villa is understood to have now joined those calls for a postponement, while criticizing the way the APT dispute has played out in public. The league is understood to have responded to Villa, agreeing with the sentiments about keeping the process private and saying it is sticking to its plan to hold a vote on Friday. League chief executive Richard Masters continues to speak to clubs this week.

Villa's letter calls for an end to the “acrimonious back and forth exchanges” over APT, arguing that “weaken” the league leadershipthe club executives and the Premier League as an organisation. For rule changes to be approved, a majority of 14 clubs must agree, or two-thirds of the votes cast when there are abstentions.

The most significant change proposed is to subject the interest rate on loans to shareholders to the fair market value (FMV) test. The rule amendment will not require fair market value interest charges to be retroactive to the time the loan was first issued. However, it is understood that the proposed amendment would mean that an effective interest rate would apply to any future existing loans after a grace period, not just new loans.

During the grace period, club owners and shareholders who have taken out loans will have the option to convert them into shares, although doing so makes withdrawing their money less simple. Some amendments approved in February will be revoked. One involves replacing “would” with “could” in the wording of what constitutes fair market value within the rules, which is anticipated to provide more leeway for clubs.

Clubs must also have access to information from the database the league maintains for comparison purposes before making calculations about whether any deal has been made for fair market value.