Richard Masters makes intriguing PSR claim as Newcastle United release financial results

The Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) have dominated headlines in recent years with some of the division’s biggest and most ambitious clubs being hamstrung by them. Newcastle United, Aston Villa and others have been forced to sell players in order to comply with the rules whilst Nottingham Forest and Everton were handed points deductions last season for breaching PSR.

Masters, who has been CEO of the Premier League since November 2019, has previously defended PSR, telling Sky Sports in January: “I believe they [financial rules] have had a positive impact.

“Not everyone agrees with me that the rules are the right ones at the moment: 'They should be liberated, they should be tightened.' There is a difference of opinion so my job is to align at least 14 clubs, hopefully 20, on what the right answers to these questions are going forward.”

However, those rules have again come under scrutiny amid legal challenges by Manchester City and Masters has recently revealed that whilst PSR will stay in place for another season at least, changes to the current rules could be in the offing:

Richard Masters interview and PSR admission

Speaking at the Financial Times' Business of Football summit, an event that Newcastle United’s chief commercial officer Peter Silverstone also spoke at, Masters revealed that the Premier League were considering alternatives to PSR, including a route that would see them follow UEFA’s ‘squad cost’ rules: “It's still a direction of travel,” Masters admitted.

“We have spent probably the last 18 months looking at squad-cost ratio as a concept to deal with two concerns with the current system. It's not that the current system doesn't work or is bad but, historically, the Premier League has followed UEFA.

“So whether you have clubs in Europe or the Premier League, they are following a common system. If you have got a system which regulates revenue and a system which regulates profits, they're different so that's an aspiration we think needs looking at.

“Secondly, the PSR system at the moment is a ‘look-back system’ over three years and the squad-cost ratio system that we have designed and is still in shadow as it were - we're monitoring clubs on that basis - delivers in-season essentially. It's an in-season test.

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“So rather than over-spending over three years and then sanctions being in place the following year, it would happen in-season. Those are the two things the clubs, in particular, wanted to see addressed.”

Newcastle United financial results

Masters’ PSR admission comes as Newcastle United post their financial results for the year ended June 30 2024. In those, Newcastle United posted a loss of £11.1m, over £60m less than their loss in the previous financial year.

The club made £69.8m from player sales due to Allan Saint-Maximin, Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh’s departures from the club. The latter two of whom were sold in the final few days of June 2024 to ensure that the Magpies did not fall foul of PSR and risk a points deduction.

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