Aston Villa raise £400m in player sales to satisfy financial rules, not football ambition

Aston Villa have raised roughly £400m from player sales in two years — Morgan Rogers to Chelsea for £117m, Jhon Duran for £71m among them. The driving force is compliance, not strategy: PSR caps losses at £105m over three years; UEFA's squad cost ratio limits spending to 70% of revenue. Villa posted losses of £119.6m (2023) and £85.4m (2024) before returning a £17m profit in 2025. A former executive called the volume of departures "a big problem" for manager Unai Emery.