Financial Fairplay Is Becoming Steadily More F*cked… But This Is a Step Too Far

*Financial Fairplay Is Becoming Steadily More Fcked… But This Is a Step Too Far**

Financial fairplay is a term fans have been forced to build an understanding of over recent years due to the football clubs they support drawing very fine lines between being safe and keeping within the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability guidelines and crossing the line by spending too much money.

The guidelines have existed within the rules and regulations of the Premier League in order to keep the divisions of English football as fair and balanced as possible – otherwise clubs with slightly smaller owners would have no chance in hell of getting anywhere in the sport.

However, some teams occasionally take it a step too far and potentially even get a bit too cocky, resulting in the Premier League taking action upon; this has been seen over recent years when both Everton and Nottingham Forest ended up receiving points deductions in the past, while Chelsea have also been in trouble with both the FA and UEFA in the past.

The former two clubs mentioned above are now (or very much were) in talks of even selling a 19-year-old for frankly ridiculous money as the Toffees look to stick within the guidelines.

£40m For a 19-Year-Old?!

Now obviously, we have seen teenagers earn their former clubs quite handy capital in the past after earning some big money moves, but there were plenty of questions being raised by football fans as to whether this was to be a good bit of business by Everton, an FFP ploy, or just Forest scamming themselves.

🚨 EXCL: Nottingham Forest working on deal to sign Harrison Armstrong from Everton. Talks for 19yo centre on ~£40m deal + sell-on clause to #EFC. England youth international targeted by #NFFC to strengthen midfield after Elliot Anderson exit @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/dqIuDsLzJV

— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) August 29, 2026

Now of course it would have been excellent business by Everton, and a massive boost to their FFP as it would have given them a slightly larger wallet than they would have had. Although it ended being a risk the Toffees faithful were not willing to take.

Announced yesterday by SkySports, Everton pulled out of negotiations for Forest’s Elliot Anderson replacement after the fans went berserk. Anderson has been the Tricky Trees’ most consistent player throughout his time since joining from Newcastle in 2024, but cashed in this summer for a remarkable £80m profit on the England international, helping their FFP margin substantially.

Harrison Armstrong seemed like a very suitable and promising replacement for Anderson, but it would have been a big risk spending that much money on who is still quite an unproven talent. The 19-year-old has played around just 600 minutes in the topflight over the past two seasons, with loan spells also at Derby County and Preston North End – although he hasn’t yet proven himself to be worthy of such a sum until his strong start to the campaign in midfield.

However, this was a transfer that would have looked very poor on paper from an Everton standpoint to lose such a promising young talent ahead of what could shape up to be an exciting season for them – which begs the question, are these FFP guidelines going too far?

Homegrown Talent Has To Go

For many clubs, the first solution they see in order to follow the financial guidelines set out by the PL is seeking out to offload their own academy graduates in order to go and buy some bigger names – this doesn’t always work out, however.

Over the years, we have seen plenty of players leave the club they were shaped by, before heading back to them later in their career. The likes of Nicolas Anelka, Marco Reus, Ederson, Alvaro Morata and Rodri all graduated from clubs such as PSG, Borussia Dortmund, Benfica and Atletico Madrid, before being shipped off for barely a penny and then rehired by their former employers, which cost them much more dearly when they could have had and kept them for nothing.

Sometimes this isn’t an easy decision for clubs either and in some scenarios, clubs are effectively forced to offload their young talent in order to avoid any potential fines for breaching any financial rules. Anderson was indeed one of those names to suffer from this, as well as Yankuba Minteh, who were both unproven yet very promising talents at the time in Tyneside, but were shipped off to Forest and Brighton respectively so that the Magpies didn’t need to sell the likes of already-made stars Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak – who have both of course now departed St James’ Park now anyway.

Lewis Hall to Newcastle, here we go! Loan deal with mandatory buy option clause — medical booked later today 🚨⚫️⚪️ #NUFC

Total package worth £35m add-ons included. “This is gonna be our final signing”, Howe announced.

Hall leaves after signing new deal at #CFC few days ago. pic.twitter.com/gUWqIUonWn

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 18, 2023

Forest didn’t get off scot-free either, as they were forced to sell Brennan Johnson to Spurs in 2023, while Chelsea had to sell full-back Lewis Hall to Newcastle a year later – and boy would they have liked him now.

Financial fairplay and all the underlying rules surrounding it are very much required in football to avoid the sport from becoming solely reliant on rich owners for a club to see any success (although we aren’t far away as it is). However, after seeing increased forced sales in recent years for promising academy talents, it is almost impossible to stay at the club you may have once dreamed about spending a whole career at.

The issue around loyalty in football is also taking a massive hit because of this, with players hardly spending even half a decade at a club unless they are suffocated in a long-term contract or a world star, as clubs see selling these young talents as the only solution to avoiding large fines or point deductions which can very much harm them in the long run.