Newcastle United and clubs across Europe will be unable to spread out transfer fees beyond the first five years of a contract following a new rule introduced by UEFA.
Clubs have previously been able to pay off big-money transfer fees over the entire length of a long-term deal in an accounting practice known as amortisation to help comply with Financial Fair Play regulations. So, for example, Newcastle could record Sandro Tonali's mooted £55m transfer fee as £9.16m-a-year in the club's accounts as opposed to £11m-a-year if the Magpies tie the Italy international down to a six-year deal as expected.
However, Newcastle will have to ensure the transfer is registered by June 30 to do so with Tonali as any deal completed from Saturday onwards will now have to comply with the new regulations. UEFA have felt moved to act after Chelsea signed a host of players to extraordinarily long contracts in the last 12 months, including Enzo Fernandez and Mykhailo Mudryk (eight years), Benoit Badiashile (seven-and-a-half years) and Wesley Fofana (seven years).
