Finance guru reveals his ‘understanding’ of how Aston Villa impacted by aborted £41m deal
Aston Villa will not suffer any significant financial shortfall as a result of the Premier League’s decision to scrap its Russian TV deal.
That is the view of finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the league’s response to the war in Ukraine.
The Premier League announced last Tuesday (8 March) that its teams had voted as one to suspend its broadcast deal in Russia.
A new six-year package for the territory was set to be introduced at the beginning of next season, per The Sun on 4 March.
Villa earned £157.1m in media income for the 2020-21 financial year as deferred matches from Covid-hit 2019-20 saw broadcast income soar.
Overseas rights accounted for £51.6m of that figure, according to the Premier League’s official figures.
Plumley argues that the likes of Villa will be insulated from the financial blow because of the rest of the top flight’s overseas deals.
“My understanding is that there’s a more than big enough cushion,” the Sheffield Hallam University expert told Football Insider‘s Adam Williams.
“With this sort of instance, you’re looking at the overall value of the deal against the value of the total pot.
“If we zoom out and look at things more widely, we can see this is the right thing to do from a moral standpoint.
“What we can see from the numbers is that the deal is reported to be worth about £6m per year.
“The new deal, for comparison was meant to be worth about £41m for six years. In the grand scheme of things, the financial hit is mostly negligible.
“It will be a small fall on the money that is currently going towards individual Premier League clubs like Villa.”
Villa, who were beaten 2-1 at West Ham yesterday (13 March), are currently 9th in the Premier League.
Steven Gerrard’s side are next in action against Arsenal on Saturday (19 March).
In other news, pundit suggests Aston Villa could beat “big six” to “superb” Kalvin Phillips deal after source’s £60m-plus news.