The beautiful game is turning ugly over finances. The Premier League is under fire for its Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), with fans accusing the system of creating cynicism and a feeling that the game is rigged.
Introduced to curb excessive spending by clubs, PSR seems to be having the opposite effect. Fans are fuming, likening PSR to the much-maligned Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system – another recent addition to the league that has caused frustration.
The anger stems from a sense of hypocrisy. Many of the clubs that voted for PSR are the very ones drowning in debt. Combined losses for Premier League clubs during the 2022-23 season reportedly exceed a staggering £600 million, raising serious questions about financial mismanagement.
Profit & sustainability rules backfire
Critics argue that these unsustainable losses are the real problem plaguing the Premier League, and PSR is just a symptom. The hurried implementation of such regulations, like VAR before it, might have unforeseen consequences.
The pressure is mounting on the Premier League to address the root cause – the clubs themselves. Unless financial responsibility takes centre stage, attempts to fix the game through regulations like PSR risk backfiring and further eroding the Premier League’s reputation with its most important asset: the fans
The application of PSR is a disaster that undermines the Premier League’s credibility and allows clubs backed by foreign oligarchs and nation states to get away with financial murder. The only way to make clubs get their house in order is to limit wages and transfers within the constraints of transparent and declared income from TV and gate money. This will not prevent the dodgy sponsorship deals, image rights and other scams but would at least stop the inflationary wage spiral as clubs struggle to match the financial might of City, Chelsea and others.
I don’t think you have to look only at PSR and VAR look at all the dodgy decisions in games since the beginning of the FAPL and you will see it’s the clubs with the most money “The big brands” that are artificially kept at the top of the pecking order. The season Leicester won the PL they had the same amount of dodgy decisions usually reserved for Man UTD they had positive 22 decisions for goals in their favour while West Ham were negative 25 a difference of 47 goals, Utd were plus 22 again. Every season West Ham is in the bottom 3 for goal decisions against, if any club threatens the top 6 or 7 watch how decisions start to turn against them, it’s happened with Everton, Tottenham now it’s starting to happen with Villa. The European Leagues mirror the same behaviour there is a coefficient for staying in Europe to make it harder for established clubs to drop out and harder for new clubs to break in. Football as a whole looks like it has a problem with equality and fairness from the top down.