City must prove fair-price offer for Savio deal
Guardiola targeting winger signed by sister side Troyes Brazilian on loan at Girona, who also have same owners
Manchester City must provide evidence of fair market value to the Premier League before signing winger Savio in a complex switch involving two other clubs under the same ownership.
The Brazilian teenager is expected to be valued by England’s top tier to ensure the deal does not circumnavigate cost controls, given he is already a City Football Group employee. It is unclear what fee City will pay affiliated French club Troyes, who signed him in 2022 but then loaned him this season to Girona, another team in the CFG empire. Savio has become an increasingly hot property at Girona, who are second in La Liga.
Bids from Premier League rivals and Bundesliga clubs have reportedly been around £25million, and City are preparing paperwork to seal an agreement.
Uefa and the Premier League both have clauses in their rulebooks which apply when teams under the same ownership do business. The European governing body would be expected to block deals between teams should they be deemed rivals. In the wake of Saudi Arabia’s takeover of Newcastle United, Premier League clubs also tightened rules on relatedparty transactions involving the top flight’s members. Under new terms drafted in 2021, clubs must demonstrate “Fair Market Value of the Transaction” to the league’s board.
One key element of the Savio deal getting the go-ahead will be to value the player for the purposes of financial fair play, with the league aligning itself with the new Uefa assessment system from next season. The player would be assessed at “book value”, which would effectively allow City to amortise an agreed fee across the period of a player’s contract.
Savio, 19, has never played for Troyes, who are 15th in Ligue 2 and still hold the player’s registration. Instead, he spent last season at PSV Eindhoven and has played 23 times for Girona, scoring five goals. He is expected to stay in Spain until the summer before joining Pep Guardiola’s team as a left-sided attacker.
New rules to deal with loans and multi-club ownership are still being finalised by the league, which meets its shareholders tomorrow and Friday in London. City were among eight clubs who defeated a temporary ban applying to this January window on loans between clubs with the same owners.
The 12-strong global CFG is the biggest empire in football, but other
English club ownerships are following suit. Todd Boehly’s consortium in control of Chelsea, also led by Clearlake Capital private equity investor Behdad Eghbali, is now the owner of Ligue 1 club Strasbourg.
Newcastle’s primary owner, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, owns four clubs in the Saudi Pro League, while Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis owns perennial Greek giants Olympiacos. Everton are the subject of a proposed takeover by US group 777 Partners, which operates an extensive multi-club ownership strategy across Europe and South America.
Manchester United have a pending 25 per cent ownership deal with Ineos, which owns Ligue One side OGC Nice and Swiss Super League team FC Lausanne-sport.