HomeExclusives Tue 9 July 2024 10:51, UK

Nottingham Forest are likely to have included the Moussa Niakhate sale in their 2023-24 accounts despite the transfer being finalised after 30 June.

That is the view of finance expert Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider it's "unusual" for clubs to do deals at the start of the new financial year unless they need to after Niakhate was sold to Lyon.

Forest are believed to have been close to their allowable losses limit again after being handed a points deduction last season, with the club needing to make a substantial profit before the 30 June accounting deadline.

Orel Mangala completed his PS15million move to Lyon and Odysseas Vlachodimos made the PS12.5million switch to Newcastle United, with both deals going through before the end of June.

But Niakhate's PS27million move to Lyon wasn't confirmed until 4 July, raising questions about whether it was included in the 2023-24 accounts.

Nottingham Forest likely sold Moussa Niakhate to avoid PSR breach Borson believes the deal is likely to have been concluded from an accounting perspective before 30 June due to Forest's PSR concerns.

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He told Football Insider: "I think the substance of the Niakhate transaction will have been completed within the year-end and will be recognised in the 2023-24 accounts.

"I think Forest are another club who were quite away short of meeting PSR in the end. They needed some quite sizeable profits from their transactions.

"It is not impossible that they have fazed the deals so a couple of them were before 30 June and one of them was after.

"It's quite unusual to do deals straight away in the new financial year unless you need to because you would wait to see how the market unfolds.

"Maybe it's slightly different because the offer was very good for Niakhate. But I will assume all the deals that we thought were done before the year-end have been done before then.

"All the deals that were talked about in that PSR scramble before the year-end, I would assume they were all done before 30 June from an accounting perspective.

"But we won't know for sure for quite a while until the accounts come out. That period will probably start in January and they will all come out before the end of March."

In other news, Nottingham Forest make approach to sign Arsenal star.