As they return to the Premier League, Leicester should be living the high life. Their preparation for Chelsea will be put to the test. Both teams now risk losing points and are ready for intense examination this summer.
Usually, the approach to the ground from Fulham Broadway is a strange hive of street preachers, vendors selling pins and scarves, and people selling matchday programmes. There’s still a lingering aftershock from Thursday lunchtime in 2022, when Roman Abramovich’s sanctions prevented Chelsea from earning a penny of income for as long as he was in charge, when the club shop went silent and the pies ran cold.
Perhaps the tiniest violin in the world humming, but nobody needs to tell how rapidly things can turn around economically here in west London.
This FA Cup match is a huge step toward Wembley and a great way to close up the season before heading into the unknown the next year. The future is clouded in doubt for both clubs.
There’s cause for concern regarding what ought to be a harsh examination of promotion-chasing Leicester’s Premier League credentials.
If they are discovered to have violated expenditure policies, it is not impossible that they will receive a point deduction for the start of the next season; nevertheless, they are now caught in a legal limbo between Premier League and English Football League (EFL) laws. They lead the Championship going into the weekend, four points ahead of the play-offs.
If the club is found guilty of violating the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations (PSR) pertaining to the three years prior to their relegation in 2023, they may be punished with as much as £92 million in 2022. This punishment could occur halfway through the 2024–25 season.
That is presuming they are promoted; they just prevailed in their argument that they shouldn’t be subject to the EFL’s metrics because they haven’t been in the Championship for the majority of the previous three years. An impartial panel concluded in their favor.
Even though Leicester hasn’t released their annual reports yet—they have till March 31 to do so—the stats don’t seem promising. It’s also not the first time Leicester and the EFL have clashed like this. The club ultimately consented to pay the league £3.1 million in 2018 in response to a 2013–14 allegation that they had violated financial fair play regulations.
“Clubs vying for promotion face an ongoing challenge,” Sheffield Hallam football financial expert Dr. Dan Plumley informs me.
“We are aware of the location of the raw data, and it appears that they would be in violation of the regulations.”
In the territory they will be visiting on Sunday, Chelsea’s £90 million deficit in the previous year has cast significant question on their capacity to comply with both the Premier League’s PSR and FIFA’s FFP regulations, should they be eligible for European competition the following season. A minor inconvenience for a side that starts the weekend ranked eleventh, but winning the FA Cup would allow them to play in the Europa League.
A precedent has been set by Everton’s 10-point deduction, which was lowered to six points on appeal—and that was only for going over the £105 million loss cap by £19.5 million. Based on current estimates, Leicester and Chelsea appear to be much further behind.
They both have an awful, never-ending cycle ahead of them: the more they sell, the lower they go and the more people cry out for investment. And keep on, nauseatingly.
Plumley cautions, “It’s highly likely Chelsea will need to sell some players before the end of June.”
“We are aware that they attempted to acquire one or two books in January, especially the domestic players who are purely profitable. We are aware of the delicate nature of the issue and the high risk and aggressive nature of the spending plan, and now we are witnessing the fallout when things haven’t quite worked out for them.
Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Cucurella, Armando Broja, and Conor Gallagher all reportedly for sale. Romelu Lukaku, who is now on loan at Roma, is also expected to go, while Newcastle is expected to exercise their option to acquire Lewis Hall for a permanent transfer this summer for £28 million.
At Leicester, the restrictions Chelsea will have to work within might be suffocating as much as frustrating. The degree to which someone may express excitement about promotion depends on how much Burnley and Sheffield United you have really watched this season. Before the season started, the Blades traded away maybe their two finest players, Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge, in what many saw as a cowardly admission of their impending relegation.
Although Leicester will have to make difficult decisions of their own, there is a feeling that, having won the FA Cup in 2021 and the English championship in 2015–16, they are now simply too large to take the parachute money and be on their way.
The contracts of Wilfried Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho, Jannik Vestergaard, Dennis Praet, and others, who they might theoretically sell for a respectable sum, expire in June. Talks on their futures won’t start until they find out which league they’ll be in the following season, according to manager Enzo Maresca.
They lost a lot of money during the time they sold Wesley Fofana for £70 million and James Maddison for £40 million. Brighton, Brentford, and Arsenal are keen to keep Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall away from them. They might not have an option.
There’s still some hope. The Premier League is thinking of modifying its PSR regulations to more closely resemble the Uefa version. The “squad cost” rule—which takes wages, transfer fees, and agent fees into account—will be the main focus of the changes. At the moment, Chelsea’s pay to turnover ratio complies with FIFA regulations.
According to Plumley, “there has always been this recommended wages to turnover ratio of 70%. It has never been enforced but it’s been recommended.”
The big six English teams, on average over the past five years, are well within that range. The Premier League wants to have it set at eighty-five percent.
Regulating those huge clubs will, regrettably, only help them further because of their well-established business models, high revenue streams, and comparatively lower cost structures than those of other teams.
But what would happen to Leicester if the Premier League changed all of its rules for the upcoming season? Does that imply that we have altered the rules so drastically that they are not subject to charges?
Premier League clubs have not all agreed to the proposed rule amendments. What will happen to its former champions now? If they can demonstrate the amount spent on youth development, the women’s team, and infrastructure, they can partially offset their losses.
However, the terrain up ahead is rugged. Even though the gap between the Championship and the Premier League seems enormous, they will be starting from a disadvantage when they return to the top division. For a dress rehearsal, first.
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