00:00Hello. Welcome to Expressenstab.com. My name is Jonny Durie. I'm here with Chief Sports
00:11Writer and Aston Villa correspondent, Matt Mayer, to talk Aston Villa and the pieces
00:17that have come out today, you will have seen in the Expressenstab, about Aston Villa's
00:23summer of FFP and dealing with what was described by the hierarchy of Villa as a ticking time
00:28bomb to meet FFP regulations. Villa fans will remember earlier in June, there was a
00:33bit of a scramble to, well, I say a bit, a big scramble to meet financial fair play regulations.
00:40A number of players left, the likes of Douglas Luiz even, who were sold to Juventus and players
00:47coming and going. And Matt, I just want to have a bit of a reflection really on the piece
00:50that you've written and I know you sat down with some of the big players at Villa to discuss
00:56this recently. And I'm sure for a lot of Villa fans today, it will be quite alarming
01:01as to how close Villa kind of got to potentially breaching these PSR FFP rules.
01:10Well I think we all knew they were close. I think we knew, you know, why those deals
01:14were being done. The deals that were done in June, obviously the sale of Douglas Luiz,
01:18the sale of Mairi Kelemen to Chelsea and Timo Robbenham to Everton. I think we all knew
01:25why those deals were getting done at the time and why they needed to be done pretty quickly
01:28that the end of Villa's accounting year was going to be June 30th and they needed to raise
01:33funds. We kind of knew that. I think what this has done is kind of put a bit more detail,
01:38you know, a bit more flesh on the bone and understanding just why, you know, just how
01:44close they were to, you know, to the limits. And well, obviously how far that they were
01:51under the limits, how much they needed to raise, how much they needed to do it quickly
01:55and the sheer complexity of that, of the Douglas Luiz sale and, you know, the fact that it only
02:03went through on June 30th or hours before the deadline shows how kind of how tough
02:11the early weeks of the summer were for Villa. For Monchi, the president of football operations
02:17and Damir Vidigani, the kind of director of football ops who is kind of the right-hand
02:23man for both Monchi and Unai Emery, you know, they kind of worked round the clock to get kind of
02:31these deals done and to get Villa, you know, under the PSR limits so they wouldn't face a
02:38potential penalty they feared they were going to get between 10 and 12 points had they done
02:42nothing, had they just left it. And then that kind of follows on to what has happened the rest
02:47of the summer where obviously Villa did break their kind of the transfer record again to sign
02:53Amadou Anana but then sold Moussa Diaby for 51 million at their former record signing. And then
03:00of course, as we spoke last week, that the kind of the final kind of weeks of the window were a
03:05little quiet, perhaps a bit quieter than people expected. And this kind of explains why really
03:12what Villa didn't want to do was create an issue where they're in the same position again
03:18next summer of basically having to, you know, get players off the books early on. So it's
03:24really interesting because obviously they had to, you know, they had to raise funds,
03:28but they feel they've done it in such a way that they have not compromised the squad. You know,
03:34they could have taken the easy option and put Oli Watkins on the market. They could have taken,
03:39you know, they could have sold Amy Martinez. There was an offer for him.
03:43They could have sold Jacob Ramsey, but they didn't want to do that. And, you know, so they've kind of
03:48been faced with this time, you know, as Damien said, it was a bomb and they were there to cut
03:55the cable, but they've done it in such a way that they feel has caused the least amount of
04:01disruption. And, you know, they feel they've come out of the summer pretty well considering the
04:06cards they were holding at the start. In that piece as well, both of them have spoken about,
04:11you know, the rules and the contrasting rules of, you know, there's PSR with the Premier League.
04:16You've got the UEFA sort of financial rules as well, how they sort of
04:20kind of work against each other. And it seems like they spoke very passionately about,
04:25you know, these rules are sort of maybe hindering clubs like Fenerbahce sort of come out of nowhere,
04:31not out of nowhere, but, you know, risen in the last couple of years to get into the
04:34Champions League places. And now they're having to juggle all these different financial rules
04:38that are going against each other. Well, I completely, you know, I think, look,
04:43the one thing that everyone can agree on is that we need some kind of financial controls.
04:47You know, otherwise Manchester City and Newcastle are just going to challenge for the Premier League
04:53title every year because they are owned by nation states. They cannot, as you and Klopp
04:57have said, they cannot go bust. They don't have to run like businesses. You need some kind of
05:03controls. But I think that, you know, I think Gamian in a couple of sentences summed up,
05:09you know, the problem with PSR, the Premier League, is effectively, you know, you need to
05:16build revenues. Well, how do you build revenues? You build revenues by winning. How do you win?
05:21You spend money. But you can't spend money without building the revenues. So effectively Villa,
05:26you know, and other clubs get locked in this cycle and they feel there is this ceiling
05:32where they cannot properly challenge the, you know, the big boys. Another issue for Villa,
05:37I think, that burns them is that they have no debt. They're owned by billionaires. They don't
05:42owe money to anyone. You've got Man United who have a colossal amount of debt, but are not,
05:47you know, there's no issue, you know, you're allowed that amount of debt. There are no rules
05:51against that. But Man United obviously have huge revenues, so far more flexibility than Villa.
05:59And I do think they've hit on a big issue there with the PSR rules, with financial fair play.
06:05You know, the system does count against those, you know, aspirational clubs. It does kind of
06:10keep everybody, you know, it maintains the status quo. Now, there's not, you know,
06:16it's very difficult to come up with a system that is going to work for everybody. You know,
06:21it's easy to say, well, it's wrong. I think coming up with a system that works is far tougher. But
06:26I think what is clear, and obviously, you know, more big news last night with Leicester,
06:31you know, kind of avoiding, you know, a points deduction this season, and effectively a
06:35technicality, you know, which is further, you know, embarrassment for kind of the Premier League is
06:41that these rules are not fit for purpose. And I think there's perhaps an argument that once they,
06:48I mean, they have agreed they're not fit for purpose, effectively, they are changing them,
06:51but they are still in place this season. And I'm a bit puzzled, I think, and I'm not the
06:55only one who's puzzled as to why, you know, that has been maintained for, you know, these rules
07:00that clearly are going to be pushed out, are going to be maintained for another season before they
07:07change them and fall more into line with the UEFA rules, which are, you know, still have their
07:13limits, you know, their issues, but are kind of, at least they're kind of going to match up.
07:19But, yeah, I think big frustration at PSR, you know, and the position that it has put,
07:26you know, Villa and other clubs, you know, the argument, I suppose, going on a bit here,
07:31but I think one of the arguments would be, well, you don't have to spend, you know,
07:35the club has put themselves in, they know the rules, they signed up to the rules,
07:38and they put themselves in this position by spending, you know, the money they have.
07:43The flip side of that is, and the argument that Damien and Monchi would make and did make,
07:48is that Villa have gone in the space of 18 months and been, you know,
07:51relegation contenders or mid-table to a Champions League club.
07:57They've moved too quickly, you know, they've been punished for moving too quickly,
08:01and that they're in a realm now where if they want to sign Champions League players,
08:05they're going to cost a certain amount of money, you know, but you can't, you know,
08:09Villa don't have the revenues to stay, you know, to then stay within the rules.
08:14So, it's kind of, you know, they're a Champions League club without Champions League money.
08:18Where there are clubs that aren't in the Champions League, which do have Champions
08:21League money, the likes of Chelsea, you know, who were in the competition for 20 years,
08:25Manchester United, Tottenham. So, there is that feeling of unfairness, certainly.
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