Everton's 'trap' with its women's team: valid in the Premier League (not UEFA)

Everton joins Chelsea and Aston Villa in a controversial but legal move: selling its women's team to a company within the same group to generate accounting profits and comply with financial fair play rules .

The Premier League allows clubs to transfer internal assets to other companies within the same group , provided the price is within " fair market value ." Several clubs have taken advantage of this opportunity to generate millions in accounting profits and thus comply with the demanding regulations of the PSR (Profitability and Sustainability Rules), the equivalent of La Liga's FFP system.

Everton are the latest to join this trend, having transferred ownership of their women's team to Roundhouse Capital Holdings , a company controlled by its owner, American Dan Friedkin , generating a profit of up to £60 million . That profit doesn't mean actual money has entered the club's treasury, but it does count as a profit on the books. And that's the key: it can be used to comply with the PSR.

How important is the PSR?

The Blues have already been penalized twice for breaching these rules , which resulted in six fewer points in 2021-22 and two fewer in 2022-23 .

The club has only signed two players to date (Thierno Barry and Mark Travers), and manager David Moyes has made it clear he needs at least five or six more signings before the transfer window closes. This move gives the club more leeway to make signings without breaking the rules.

This is where the debate begins. Chelsea and Aston Villa have already done this before, with similar results. Although the Premier League allows it , provided "fair market value" criteria are met, UEFA does not recognize it as valid for its own financial fair play purposes. In fact, the European body is expected to begin toughening its stance on the matter.

What the clubs do is revalue an internal asset ( the women's team ), sell it to a company in the same group and make a profit of millions that they can then use as a margin for signings for the men's team.

The women's team will continue to operate as part of Everton, but now as a separate entity that the club says can attract its own investment (e.g., from the United States). This could also allow them to generate more revenue in the future .

But critics point out that women's football is being used as a mere means of exchange . At a time of ongoing struggles for professionalization and equal resources , these practices are a reminder that, for some clubs, women's teams remain secondary assets in the global football landscape.

" Under the previous owners, this wouldn't have happened ," say some Everton fans. But football has changed. In this new environment, whoever best understands the rules off the field has a better chance of winning on it.