• Club’s losses reduced by property deal with sister company
• Chelsea would have lost £166.4m without hotel sales

Premier League clubs reacted with exasperation after seeing that ­Chelsea eased their financial ­position with the £76.5m sale of two hotels to a ­sister company in a deal that appears to have helped the club avoid a breach of profitability and ­sustainability rules (PSR).

Chelsea’s accounts, published last weekend, revealed the club made a loss of £89.9m in the last financial year. That figure would have been £166.4m without the hotels sale from Chelsea FC Holdings Ltd to Blueco 22 Properties Ltd. Both companies are subsidiaries of Chelsea’s holding company, Blueco 22 Ltd.

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Exclusive: Charges relate to £225m debt with Rights & Media Funding, with records suggesting a trail leading to Michael Tabor

Everton has paid about £30m in interest charges to an opaque lender associated with a tax exile, corporate records suggest.

The charges appear to have reached about £438,000 a week, according to the troubled Premier League club’s most recent set of accounts, a figure more than three times the reported wages of the Everton and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

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Like VAR, profitability and sustainability rules have created cynicism and not tackled the real problem of clubs’ huge financial losses

Everton FC, the grand old team, edged closer to a first relegation since 1951 on Monday. Pretty much. The whole business may not actually be resolved until after the season finishes or could bleed into next season. But put all that to one side and the picture is crystal clear. If you squint. From a certain angle.

The Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), rightly or otherwise, are turning into something of a laughing stock. Rules which had previously never led any club to receive a sporting sanction have seen two docked points this season. Everton have been punished on two occasions, in fact, although their first punishment was reduced on appeal and their second, a two-point deduction for a £16m overspend, could yet be shrunk too. Nottingham Forest are also appealing their own four-point sanction.

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Delay exposes clubs to accusations of lack of transparency at time of increased scrutiny of finances

Two-fifths of Premier League football clubs have yet to make their latest accounts publicly available, as Sunday’s deadline for most official filings approaches.

The gaps in up-to-date public information comes at a time when the finances of England’s top flight are under increasing scrutiny, especially over concerns about potential breaches of financial fair play (FFP) rules.

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• Leicester respond to action taken against them by leagues
• EFL imposes transfer embargo but club calls it ‘premature’

Leicester City have issued legal proceedings against the Premier League and English Football League after being dismayed by the action taken by the two organisations. Leicester are facing the potential double whammy of being docked points by both leagues owing to alleged financial breaches.

Leicester, who were relegated from the top flight last season, have been placed under a transfer embargo by the EFL for allegedly exceeding the upper loss threshold in their profitability and sustainability calculations relating to the 2023-24 season.

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An independent regulator could act in the best interests of a sport in which too much power and wealth has accrued at the top

In The Football Man , his acclaimed 1960s portrait of the national sport, the writer and journalist Arthur Hopcraft wrote that “the way we play the game, organise it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are”. Viewed from the present, that is quite a depressing thought.

England’s football family is an unequal, fractious and divided one right now. Booming broadcast revenues, the success of the Premier League and the legacy of an anything-goes approach to club ownership have channelled enormous power and wealth to the top of the domestic game, but created deep insecurity elsewhere. Despite having signed a record £6.7bn domestic television deal in December, Premier League clubs continue to resist calls to level up enormous financial disparities between leagues. As a turbo-charged elite hoovers up trophies, TV contracts and big bucks, clubs outside that gilded circle struggle to survive and remain vulnerable to reckless and exploitative owners.

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Clubs may not like what they sign up to and object to the extent of sanctions, but cannot cry corruption if rules are transparent

Welcome to the Premier League’s latest sensational product innovation: the courtroom drama relegation battle. Two things seem certain after the decision to dock four points from Nottingham Forest over breaches of profitability and sustainability rules. First, this isn’t over by any measure.

Buckle up for some really excellent legal wrangle content over the coming months as Forest, Everton and at least four other clubs cling like Indiana Jones on a collapsing rope bridge to a league table primed to shuffle and rejig with every fresh tribunal hearing and special circumstances appeal.

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En global, i segons les dades publicades pel mateix departament, al febrer els ingressos van ser de prop de 22 milions, un 29% per sobre dels 17 de l'any passat. I això confirma el bon inici que s'havia viscut al gener. En total, entre els dos mesos ja es freguen els 42 milions, quan el 2023 es quedava lleugerament per sota dels 32,5. I, com s'ha dit, el motiu cal buscar-lo bàsicament en el comportament de les importacions de tabac. Si al llarg de tot l'any passat, les xifres van ser força baixes, enguany s'estan recuperant, sense arribar, tot s'ha de dir, a les assolides, per exemple, el 2022. Però n'arriba més i, per tant, la recaptació a duana creix. Al febrer, va ser d'11,6 milions, en comparació als 6,47 del 2023 (+79,4%). I això fa que l'acumulat en els dos primers mesos de l'exercici s'apropi a doblar dades: 21,14 pels 11,9 d'un any abans (+76,8%). Ingressos a duana gener-febrer del 2024. Pel que fa a altres productes, les begudes han començat l'any amb caigudes de recaptació. Al febrer, de l'11,6% (de 786.663 a 695.344 euros) i en els dos primers mesos, la davallada és del 4,6%. En el capítol de combustibles, el segon mes de l'any no ha estat bo, amb una davallada del 5,2% (de 4,86 a 4,6) però en global, la xifra anual és encara positiva: 9,71, un 2,8%. En el capítol d'altres mercaderies, la dada global dels dos mesos es queda un 1,2% per sobre de la del 2023. Puja a 9,67 milions, en comparació als 9,556 de l'any passat, després d'un febrer amb una evolució a l'alça: 5,05 (+2,6%).

La forta recuperació de la importació de tabac enfila els ingressos a duana

En tot cas, el sector assegurador, al qual afecta el protocol de serveis financers, "està amatent al que dir aquest acord d'associació", segons que ha reconegut el director general de Creand Assegurances Vida, Xavier Puigdemassa. Els responsables de les asseguradores es prodiguen molt poc en actes públics. Puigdemassa va participar aquest dijous en un acte conjuntament amb l'Automòbil Club (ACA) i l'associació que lluita contra el càncer (Assandca). Malgrat que Puigdemassa va deixar clar que no representa el conjunt del sector, que té una associació que el representa, sí que va admetre que les empreses estan al corrent del protocol però també estan a l'expectativa de si cal ultimar alguns serrells finals per poder, en definitiva, comprovar "com pot impactar" l'acord d'associació "en el sistema actual i quines de possibilitats de futur hi pot haver".

La presència a Andorra d'asseguradores espanyoles i franceses ha de fer més fàcil l'acord amb la UE