Big £218m Premier League PSR claim made that would have benefitted Aston Villa and Wolves

The current Premier League rules around financial fair play state that clubs can only record a loss of up to £105m across a three year cycle.

In recent seasons, this has seen a number of clubs forced to sell players to meet the league's requirements and avoid breaching the regulations.

Everton and Nottingham Forest are two clubs that have fallen foul of the rules - while Aston Villa and Wolves have had to scramble to make player sales to avoid breaking the rules in recent campaigns.

Last summer Villa had to sell the likes of Douglas Luiz and academy graduate Jaden Philogene to meet the Premier League's rules.

In June last year, Villa put forward a proposal to increased the limit clubs are allowed to lose to £135m, to match inflation but a number of fellow clubs were not on board with the idea.

Now football finance expert Kieran Maguire has claimed that not only were Villa right to put forward the proposal in the first place - but the figure should arguably be a lot higher due to the huge rise in inflation since the original rules were voted on 12 years ago.

He believes that if inflation had been taken into account, then clubs would be allowed to lose up to £218m over a three year period.

Speaking on this week's episode of the Price of Football, Maguire claimed: "It (Villa's request) seems fair yet it was rejected," he told the Price of Football podcast. 

"Now why it was rejected was because all decisions being made are being made on a self-interest short-term basis. It makes sense from Villa's perspective.

"The Aston Villa owners have invested heavily in players, in coaching staff and so on. So I got out my trusted spreadsheet and what I did is I said, 'Right, why was this figure of £105m introduced in the first place?'

"I've done a lot of research and it just appears to be a number plucked from nowhere so I said, 'If it was deemed to be sustainable then let's look at it in terms of metrics'.

"The losses of £105m based on the revenues of a club in 2013 were 29.4%. So what the Premier League said is if you are able to be sustainable, you are allowed to lose 29.4% of the total money that you bring in but if we move that forward to the most recent set of financials, that 29.4% drops to 14.1%.

"If the Premier League was saying that 29.4% was a valid figure, let's work that out based on current revenues and, according to my figures, clubs should be allowed to lose £218m over three years and they would be in exactly the same position as they were in 2013."

His comments come amid reports that clubs below the traditional big six could well have to do some financial juggling again this summer to meet the PSR regulations.