If there was anything dodgy about the Philogene deal, I think that Villa are the ones creating the dodginess, it wasn’t just Philogene they “sold” & bought back, but Cameron Archer too, they then “sold” him again to Southampton.
Didn’t they & Everton both spend money on youth players from each other, just happening to be the same amount?
Yeah, Chelsea, Forest and Newcastle also did it. It’s a loophole to get around FFP/PSR.
Transfer fees are amortised over the length of the contract. If you buy a player for £20 million on a 5-year-deal, it would count as a £4 million loss per year. However, any incomings from player sales are calculated as profit for that year so if you sell an academy player for £20 million, that’s £20 million pure profit. So buying a player for £20 million on a 5-year-deal and selling an academy player for £20 million in the same year would be a £16 million profit, not including wages. That’s why Chelsea, Villa, Everton etc. sold each other academy players for almost equal transfer fees.
