The news that Premier League clubs will vote later this month to scrap PSR rules is absolute music to my ears.
The current Profit and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) are set to be replaced with something a little more user-friendly — and quite frankly, it can’t come quickly enough.
For far too long, the West Ham ownership have hidden behind financial regulations — first Financial Fair Play (FFP) and then PSR — to justify the club’s lack of ambition.
To make a clumsy simplification, the rules were meant to stop clubs spending more than they earn. In theory, it was about ensuring financial stability. In reality, it became an ambition killer West Ham hid behind.
Designed to Keep the Big Clubs Winning
PSR and FFP were introduced under the guise of “protecting” clubs from financial ruin, but what they really did was protect the established elite. They acted as a convenient spending cap to keep the traditional powerhouses — Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, and the rest — firmly at the top.
Once upon a time, clubs like Blackburn, Chelsea, and Manchester City could disrupt the hierarchy by investing heavily. PSR stopped all that. It was football’s version of a closed shop.
And in West Ham terms, it meant that the club’s three billionaires could trot out the same tired line: “We’d love to invest our own money, but we’re not allowed to.”
A Convenient Excuse
Trying to calculate West Ham’s PSR leeway was always near impossible. The rules were so convoluted that fans were expected to take it on faith whenever the board told Claret & Hugh: “We have to sell. We have no money. It’s because of PSR.”
From my perspective, it often felt more like a convenient excuse than a genuine restriction. Other clubs found clever workarounds — selling their training grounds to holding companies, using creative accounting, or maximising commercial revenue.
West Ham? We just seemed content to sit on our hands.
It’s also worth remembering that training ground and infrastructure improvements were never part of the PSR calculation. Nothing stopped the board from building a state-of-the-art £50 million training complex — except the will to do so.
The End of Excuses
So farewell, PSR — and good riddance.
Let’s hope this next set of financial rules comes with new loopholes, new ambition, and maybe even new owners who are willing to use them.
Because West Ham fans deserve to dream again — without those dreams fading and dying by the margins of an accounting ledger.
All the angst about Sullivan and Co won’t change anything for us unless some wealthy individual or organisation can be persuaded to take on a club not in Europe and in a restricted rented stadium. I hope they are out there and have mega cash to burn because for football clubs in the Premier league you will not see any sensible return on your investment!
Originally designed to prevent short term speculation ending in collapse, failure and administration. That was never applicable to the likes of Manchester City or Chelsea. Yet the unintended consequences of the rules saw every club having to spread costs with 8 year contracts and creative accounting. We are still waiting to discover what happens to Man City and their 120+ rule violations from a couple of years ago. Other clubs were deducted points and were forced to suck it up.
A bad set of rules, brought in with the best intentions but doomed to fail from the outset.
Well run clubs living within their means is and always has been the way to go.
If someone can afford to lose a fortune in an attempt to flirt with the footballing elite as Wigan may have done, then allow them to try. Just warn off the dodgy spivs like Kiavash Joorabchian. Honest investors and honest owners will ensure the future of football.
It should be appreciated and understood that not every team can be in the top two of the league or win the FA cup every year. That is why they are called competitions.
Just crossing everything to hope that West Ham United can add to our honours list in the near future.
COYI
New systems being proposed will still keep the top 6 clubs at the top.
The reality is, if our owners do not want to invest (or in the case of the Gold family, are unable to invest) it doesn’t matter what rules are in place
We aren’t sitting on a massive pile of cash, we are simply poor at our dealings in the transfer market (buying and selling) and overpay in wages.
Additionally, the lack of long term investment in our training facilities is short sighted and also evidences a lack of desire to invest in the club.
Until we have new owners the lack of investment will continue.
What can improve is the management of the club on a day to day basis if we had a new Chairman and vice chairman and a technical director who knew what they were doing.
Gat chance of much changing in my view but we live in hope.
As much as it’s lamented PSR by clubs that have overspent or spent poorly when you look at the PL and you see clubs like Brentford. Bournemouth and Brighton doing well and ourselves, Aston Villa and dareisay Spuds being able to compete more evenly with the old top 6 has it actually been positive for evening the playing field ?