Villa chief Vidagany: Luiz sale halts points penalty

The Midlands club had to part ways with one or two valuable assets in order to prevent too many financial losses on their balance sheet.

Now it is revealed that hours before the June 30 cut-off, the deal to sell Douglas Luiz to Juventus kept them afloat.

Director of football operations Damian Vidagany said: "At the end of the season, we found ourselves in a situation where we had to sell players for profit to avoid being in breach with PSR. From May 20 to June 30 is normally a holiday period in football. It wasn’t for us.

"We had to find a solution to a past problem.‌ Once that was over, there was a moment when everyone was cheering and celebrating the Champions League. Monchi and I were thinking about how to not spoil this beautiful year by having a points deduction.‌

"There was a bomb with the countdown and we were there to cut the cable. We sorted it out at the last second.”

Vidagany added: "We couldn’t take out one of Unai’s most important players next season. That was the challenge. Our responsibility was to solve the problem and build the best team possible for next season. We could not compromise any success this season. So, do we sell (Ezri) Konsa? Or (Leon) Bailey? Or Luiz?"

Monchi added: “Another solution was to put Ollie Watkins on the market. It’s an easy one because he’s a top striker. Or sell the best goalkeeper in the world, Emi Martinez, because we also had offers for him.

“If we had sold Jacob Ramsey, it would have been solved. And we could - because we had offers.”