The Premier League’s recent summer transfer window was like no other. Expenditure eclipsed the £3bn mark for the first time, the British transfer record was broken twice by Liverpool and 8 clubs each spent more than £100m in transfer fees. Aston Villa were not one of those clubs, and in the context of such an active summer for their competitors it is easy to see why some fans have been left frustrated.

Deadline Day did provide some respite though, with the acquisition of Harvey Elliott from Liverpool proving to potentially be a piece of standout business for the West Midlands club. It is well documented that the club has their hands tied by the restrictions of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) as well as UEFA’s Financial Sustainability Regulations – significantly impacting their ability to spend on transfers in the short term. For comparison, Liverpool’s £614m turnover in 2023-24 was more than double that of Aston Villa’s and went some way to explaining how they could afford record transfer expenditure whilst complying with the rules.

The restrictions on Aston Villa are clearly biting, and even to get the Harvey Elliott deal over the line the club had to be financially creative. Elliott’s loan deal features an obligation to buy for £35m – contingent on making 10 first team appearances. Whilst permitting clubs an ‘option to buy’ has been commonplace in modern football, the trend of obliging a team to buy a player after a loan is relatively new, but one that is gaining increasing popularity.

What is the purpose of an obligation to buy clause?

It initially seems odd to loan a player with an obligation to buy them, it’s reasonable to ask why wouldn’t a club just complete a straight permanent transfer? The answer largely lies with the amortisation of fees – the accounting process of spreading the cost of an asset over the estimated useful life cycle, in the case of a player their contract. Loan fees are often lower and therefore reduce the accounting impact of a player in the first year, the transfer once executed in the second year can be amortised across the length of the contract. The deal is no reflection on Villa’s commitment to Elliott, more the fact they need to use careful deal structuring in order to facilitate the move going through.

The flip side of this exercise is the deal that allowed Jacob Ramsey to move to Newcastle United for a fee of around £40m. As a home grown player he has no remaining amortised book value in the club accounts, and the transfer fee is reflected in full for 2025/26. This is because unlike in the Elliott deal, there is no transfer fee to spread across accounting periods as he was effectively bought for nothing by coming through the club’s academy. Additionally, the accounting profit isn’t dependent on how Newcastle United structure their deal, this will impact cash flow which is reported separately – the club will get the full PSR benefit in the current year.

Aston Villa are far from alone in this venture, the following are significant loan deals in 2025 that featured an obligation to buy (all reported or estimated fees):

Nicolas Jackson (Chelsea to Bayern Munich) – £70.5m

Douglas Luiz (Juventus to Nottingham Forest) – £21.5m plus £3m in performance related add-ons

Nicolò Savona (Juventus to Nottingham Forest) – £11.2 million, plus £2.2 million in performance-related add-ons

Timothy Weah (Juventus to Marseille) – £12.4 million, plus £3.5 million in performance-related add-ons

Nico González (Juventus to Atlético Madrid)  £27.5 million, plus £860,000 in performance-related add-ons

Whilst creative accounting can help with PSR compliance, and it is likely that the summer of 2025 will benefit Aston Villa significantly in this regard, it is important to consider the long term trade-offs. Expenses need to be accounted for somewhere, and deferring costs into future periods can often have the impact of mortgaging the future. Harvey Elliott’s transfer fee will be spread into the future and will restrict the spending power of the club in those years – albeit minimally in each period when considering this transfer alone.

The hope for Villa will be that policy and regulations change in the future, easing the forced restrictions on their transfer policy. Clearly Liverpool’s summer will fuel the critics of PSR, arguing that it’s another set of rules that benefit the richest to the detriment of everyone else. Until there is change, clubs like Aston Villa will be forced to be increasingly creative in their approach.