Rival fans accuse Chelsea of ‘player laundering’ after agreeing Omari Kellyman and Ian Maatsen deals with Aston Villa… as deadline nears to comply with financial rules
Rival fans have hit out at Chelsea accusing the Blues of ‘player laundering’ as the club looks to meet Premier League financial rules ahead of a fast approaching deadline.
Chelsea are closing on completing two deals with Aston Villa, with attacking midfielder Omari Kellyman expected to join the club in a £19million transfer.
Kellyman, 18, is due to have a medical on Monday ahead of signing a six year deal.
Ian Maatsen is expected to go in the opposite direction, with the Chelsea left back set to undergo a medical ahead of a £37.5m move to Aston Villa.
Aston Villa and Chelsea are among the clubs under pressure to meet the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules, which the deadline for clubs to file their accounts falling on Sunday.
Chelsea are close to completing the signing of Aston Villa youngster Omari Kellyman for £19m
Full back Ian Maatsen is expected to join Aston Villa from Chelsea in a £37.5m transfer
Both Chelsea and Aston Villa have both been reported to be needing to complete deals to meet Premier League financial rules ahead of the June 30 deadline
Premier League clubs are allowed to lose £105m over a three-year rolling time frame, with the end of each accounting year coming on June 30.
Maatsen and Kellyman would both represent ‘pure profit’ on the accounts of selling clubs, easing concerns around meeting the financial rules.
The buying clubs can spread the cost of the transfer over the length of the player’s contracts, known as amortisation.
The transfer deals between the clubs are not against the rules, but rival fans have questioned the moves and the fees involved in the deals.
Fans have highlighted that Chelsea are set to spend £19m on Kellyman, just two years after he joined Aston Villa from Derby for £600,000.
The England youth international has made just six first-team appearances for Aston Villa, totalling 150 minutes of senior action for the club.
One rival fan accused the clubs of ‘inflating’ their balance sheets with the deals, branding the transfers as ‘player laundering’.
Rival fans have questioned the mutually beneficial deals between the clubs, with one branding it ‘player laundering’
Another questioned the valuations of the transfers ahead of the accounting deadline on Sunday
‘So Villa sign Maatsen for £35m this transfer £20m+ Player laundering to get round PSR so they can book the revenue. In plain sight,’ the fan wrote.
‘”Hi villa, Chelsea here, we will buy a young player from you for £25m and you buy one from us for £25m we can both book the profit in June to help us both with our breaches, it’s a wash and highly profitable”
‘I mean inflating your balance sheet to pass rules, its like the clubs involved have messed up their finances, which they have. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!’
Another also highlighted further transfer deals between clubs with PSR challenges ahead of the deadline.
Aston Villa signed Everton academy product Lewis Dobbin for an undisclosed fee on Sunday, a day after the Toffees completed a £9m move for Tim Iroegbunam.
Mail Sport reported that Newcastle had been considering a £35m move for Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin, while 19-year-old winger Yankuba Minteh is a £30m target for the Toffees.
Minteh was signed by Newcastle last summer for a reported £5.8m fee.
‘Chelsea, Villa, Everton, and Newcastle need to sell players to stay within the financial regulations by June 30th,’ one fan wrote. ‘Academy players are being sold for inflated fees before the June 30th deadline… we all know why.’
Newcastle had previously been in talks with Everton over a deal to sign Dominic Calvert-Lewin
Everton could reportedly signed Newcastle winger Yankuba Minteh – pictured in action for Feyenoord last season
Everton completed the signing of Tim Iroegbunam from Aston Villa for £9m on Saturday
Lewis Dobbin moved to Aston Villa for an undisclosed fee on Sunday from Everton
Everton and Nottingham Forest were docked eight and four points respectively for breaching PSR rules last season though both managed to avoid relegation.
And Leicester, newly promoted from the Championship, could begin next season with a points deduction after they too were charged earlier this year.
Aston Villa last month saw a proposal to increase the maximum permitted losses from £105million to £135m over three years rejected at the Premier League’s annual general meeting.
Earlier this month, Aston Villa owner Nassef Sawiris said he was considering taking legal over the rules, which he claimed ‘do not make sense’.
Aston Villa look poised to sell star Douglas Luiz to Juventus for £17m, with Samuel Iling Junior and Enzo Barrenechea coming the other way, despite qualifying for next season’s Champions League.
Chelsea have insisted they are on course to meet PSR rules despite the club’s accounts, published on Companies House for the year ending June 30 2023, showing a pre-tax loss of £90.1m.
Aston Villa owner Nassef Sawiris, right, has claimed the Premier League financial rules ‘do not make sense’
Fans had previously hit out at Chelsea generating £76m by selling two hotels on the Stamford Bridge site to another company they own.
Insiders at the London club insist that deal was done within the Premier League’s rules and ran by the competition beforehand, adding that they used two independent valuers to ensure a fair price was agreed.
The Premier League failed in an effort to ban clubs from similar moves, with only 11 of the 20 clubs backed a rule amendment – short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify an amendment to the rules.
