UEFA now look to be set to punish Newcastle United in similar fashion to what both Aston Villa and Chelsea have experienced.
Last season (2024/25), both Aston Villa and Chelsea passed the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.
However, they failed the UEFA rules after they refused to accept sales of their women’s teams by the two clubs as eligible income.
July 2025 seeing Aston Villa and Chelsea punished in various ways (see below) by UEFA for their 2023/24 financial year.
Now it has been revealed that Newcastle United are set to follow due to their 2024/25 finances.
City FM have reported about Newcastle United: ‘The club are in talks with Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body over a potential breach of spending regulations which, unlike the Premier League’s, do not allow the sale of stadiums and other infrastructure to sister companies to be counted as profit. Newcastle sold the leasing rights to St James’ Park to sister company PZ Holdings Ltd for a £133.1m profit in June last year, the latest accounts show. It helped the club post an operating profit of £43.6m for the year to the end of June 2025.’
Newcastle United set to learn by the end of the season if they have indeed breached the UEFA financial rules.
City FM going on to say: ‘Newcastle face a fine and trading restrictions requiring them to be net positive in transfer income for a period. On a run of four straight defeats and 14th in the Premier League, they may miss out on the Europa League or Europa Conference League. But City AM has been told it will not exempt them from UEFA sanctions.’
Those Aston Villa and Chelsea punishments handed down by UEFA in July 2025
Chelsea had to pay a total of £27m in fines and could pay up to £52m more if they breach their four-year agreement with the CFCB.
Aston Villa had to pay £9.5m in fines and failure to comply with their three-year settlement could lead to a further penalty of up to £13m more.
Both Premier League clubs broke UEFA’s football earnings rule and squad cost rule.
Villa and Chelsea had a squad cost ratio (percentage of a club’s income spent on the first-team squad) of between 80 and 90 per cent for 2024. The squad cost ratio has now become even more restrictive with UEFA now limiting it to a maximum of 70 per cent.
Both Aston Villa and Chelsea agreed to a restriction on registering new players for UEFA competitions in the 2025/26 season – unless the value of new signings added to their squads is recouped in sales.
For Chelsea, this measure will also be in place for the 2026/2027 season.