Premier League clubs approve changes to associated party transaction rules
The proposed changes came into play after an independent tribunal found some aspects of the APT rules to be unlawful following Manchester City’s lawsuit.
European clubs went berserk in the 2017 transfer window, with Premier League sides alone accounting for £1.4 billion in business and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger feels something has got to give soon.
“Something will happen,” Wenger was quoted as saying by the club website.
“It is for the first time that yesterday politically the German prime minister came out and the president of Uefa came out. I think politically something will happen in the next 12 months to regulate and limit the transfer amount,” added the 67-year-old.
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Arsenal smashed their transfer record to sign Alexandre Lacazette for £56.5 million but that amount paled in comparison to the sum Paris Saint-Germain paid for Neymar (€222million/£198 million).
“You have to go one of two ways – regulate it properly or leave it completely open. But you cannot be in between – that is where we are at the moment,” Wenger stressed.
Wenger’s tight-fisted policy has been slammed by fans in recent years and it come as no surprise that the Frenchman is advocating a more stringent regulation for future transfer windows.
“That is only to the advantage of some clubs who can deal with rules in a legal way. The regulation has to be stricter and clearer, or open it completely: you can do what you want provided you can guarantee you have the money to pay.”
In the Premier League, Manchester City and Manchester United have splashed the cash and unsurprisingly their recruiting spree has enabled the arch-rivals to jointly top the league after five games played.
Even defending champions Chelsea paid fees to sign the likes of Alvaro Morata, Danny Drinkwater and Tiemoue Bakayoko, among others.
“At the moment, we are a bit in between and that does not work,” the Arsenal manager added.
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