Sorry you misunderstand totally the accounting.They have benefited hugely from the PL allowing multi year amortisation (that loop hole is now closed)... but they were still able to sign ~20 odd players on 8 year deals with their transfer fee spread over 8 years. When those players are sold, and some already have then they benefit from putting the whole transfer in the current year. This is kicking the can down the road because you end up counting player costs who are not even at the club (think NFL salary cap problem... they call it dead money). Take Mudryk... he was signed in Jan-23 on an 8.5 year contract for £62m. His transfer fee is on their books at £7.3m every accounting year until 2031/32. Multiply that a few times and you can see their problem. They probably have 50-60m in transfer fees for players on their books every season. But the trick is to keep selling them even if you make a loss which they are likely to do on some of these players even in an inflated market. If they sell Mudryk this summer for 20m then that whole amount will count in their 2025/26 accounts. If every club made a pact not to buy from them they would need to come up with another loophole.
Yes they benefitted by placing players on long term contracts, but if they sell the player, the remaining balance of that player in their books gets written off at time of sale, and the nett (of sale proceeds less book value) is shown as the profit/loss on disposal of asset.
You do NOT under any circumstances continue amortizing an asset after you have disposed of it.


