Aston Villa are set to announce a profit for the 2021-22 financial year, sources have told Football Insider.
The accounts, which are due for release by the end of February, cover a season in which Villa finished 14th in the Premier League, sacked Dean Smith and appointed Steven Gerrard, who has now himself been replaced by Unai Emery.
But a turbulent year on the pitch has produced the club’s best set of financial results in recent times and the first profit under the ownership of Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris.
That was due in large part to the sale of Jack Grealish to Man City for a British-record £100million, a move which allowed Villa to almost break even in the transfer market.
A source told Football Insider that the academy product’s departure means the club finished 2021-22 in the green, even with amortisation costs from heavy spending in previous seasons as well as an increase to the overall wage bill.
That news is a departure from Villa’s financial results in recent years – they recorded deficits of £37.3m, £99.2m, and £68.9m in the three seasons after Edens and Sawiris first bought into the club.
Those losses would ordinarily land Villa in trouble under the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play rules, but allowances have been made to negate the impact of the pandemic.
The 2021-22 season was Villa’s first with a full year’s worth of matchday income since the beginning of the pandemic.
The club typically averages around £12m in terms of cash through the turnstiles.
Smith’s sacking in November last year is believed to have cost the NSWE regime around £4m, with Villa paying a similar amount to prise Gerrard from Rangers.
Emiliano Buendia, Leon Bailey, Lucas Digne and Danny Ings also arrived in the summer for big money.
