Myles Lewis-Skelly referenced the recent transfer rumours surrounding him in his post celebrating Arsenal’s Premier League title success on Sunday.
Myles Lewis-Skelly celebrated Arsenal’s Premier League title win by sharing a picture of himself with the trophy on Sunday night, captioning the image with just two words: “Pure profit.”
As recently as this month, transfer rumours have been circulating around Lewis-Skelly, with many publications pointing out that the player’s status as a former academy boy gives Arsenal a financial incentive to sell him.
From an accounting perspective, the sale of academy players represents “pure profit”, freeing the club up to make bigger investments than if they sold a player they’d previously signed for big money (even if both transfer exits were for identical fees).
That’s because new signings have a book value that slowly depreciates over the length of their contract, but academy players effectively have no book value.
If a player signs for £100m on a five-year deal and is sold after three years, the profit in the accounts would be their sale fee minus their remaining book value (which would be £40m at that point). So a £60m sale would mean £20m profit on the books.
By contrast, the £60m sale of an academy player is £60m profit. The entire sale is realised as profit.
Lewis-Skelly is clearly aware of the reports about his potential transfer exit, and his Instagram post could be interpreted multiple ways.
But perhaps the most realistic interpretation is that he’s making the point that there’s more than one way to ‘profit’ from the academy. A player’s value is not just in the accounting tricks you can play with their sale, but also in the moments they provide on the pitch.
Arsenal haven’t made any money from Lewis-Skelly’s transfer, but helping the team to a first Premier League title in 22 years is priceless to the fans.
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