Premier League clubs avoid 2023-24 PSR charges

The Premier League has not charged any clubs for breaches of its financial rules after all were deemed financially compliant for the 2023-24 season. Most Premier League clubs had to file their accounts in respect of the 2023/24 season on or before December 31. And the ruling body is delighted, pending more confirmation, it feels all members are within PSR rules.

Under PSR rules, clubs cannot show losses above £105m across a three-year period. It had been reported Leicester City were one of a number of clubs close to breaching the Premier League’s margins for allowed losses.

The Foxes avoided a points deduction after they won an appeal against a charge in September, which covered the three years up until the end of the 2022-23 season.

An independent panel, however, ruled that the Premier League was not empowered to impose the punishment on the Foxes because the latter was already relegated to the EFL Championship when their accounting period ended on 30 June 2023.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, Leicester and the Premier League said the matter remains “the subject of confidential arbitration proceedings”.

What is PSR?

The first profit and sustainability regulations were brought into force by the Premier League during the 2015-16 season. It came after calls to protect clubs from overspending after Portsmouth became the first – and so far only – Premier League club to go into administration.

The rules allow for Premier League clubs to post losses of £105m over a three-year reporting cycle. Spending on Academy, Infrastructure and Community project categories are excluded from profit and sustainability submissions. Who has been punished in the past?

In 2023, Everton became the first club charged by the Premier League for breaches of its financial rules.

An independent commission found that Toffee had posted accounted losses of £124.5m to the year 2021-22 and subsequently delivered a guilty verdict before proceeding to dock points off the club – its decision was thereafter reduced on appeal to six from ten.

Everton were punished again in January 2024 along with Nottingham Forest. The Toffees also had another two points deducted for being £16.6m over the loss limit for the three-year period to 2022-23. Forest were deducted four points after an independent commission found the club’s losses to 2022-23 breached the threshold of £61m by £34.5m.

For clubs not in the Premier League for the entirety of the previous three-year cycle – of which Forest are one, having been promoted to the top flight in 2022 – there are different thresholds.