Everton sell their women’s team to parent company to splash the cash and ease PSR headache – following Chelsea and Aston Villa in controversial move

Everton have sold their women’s team to their parent company in a move which will allow them to splash the cash on new signings and stave off profitability concerns.

Records on Companies House, first reported by The Times, show that Everton Football Club Women Ltd has been transferred to a company called Roundhouse Capital Holdings, which is controlled by Everton’s owner, businessman Dan Friedkin.

Roundhouse was the firm The Friedkin Group used to buy the club in December.

Insiders have reportedly said the move will help to ensure the women’s team is a standalone entity capable of attracting its own investment from the United States.

They accept, however, that it will also help the Toffees comply with PSR.

Everton have become the third Premier League side to make the most of a controversial law which allows clubs to sell assets, such as their women’s team, to related entities and then record the profit in their PSR calculations.

Chelsea and Aston Villa were the first to take advantage of this particular ruling.

However, both these clubs subsequently breached UEFA’s stricter financial rules, which seek to deter teams from shifting around assets in this manner.

According to The Times, the Premier League have vehemently insisted the law is not a loophole because they conduct rigorous fair value assessments.

Everton were previously deducted six points for breaching PSR in the 2021-22 campaign and two points for a breach in 2022-23.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, via The Times, said Chelsea’s eyebrow-raising sale of their women’s team for £200m, ten times their annual revenue, means Everton could put a valuation of £60m on their own women’s side. 

The Toffees lost 3-0 to Bournemouth in their opening Premier League Summer Series match, leaving David Moyes to rue a lack of signings this summer. 

He said: ‘Yes, but let’s be fair, it’s not just players missing. We need to sign a lot of players and we’re hugely aware that we need to bring a bunch of new players in.

‘I wish we could have had them earlier because it would have helped us now and helped us prepare them for the team. 

‘We’re fully aware that we’ve come here with a really limited squad and numbers and quite a few injuries as well.’