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Newcastle United’s pursuit of Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Lucas Bergvall is expected to gather pace this week.

The situation now appears to be moving in Newcastle’s favour as the club look to complete a deal for one of their long-standing summer transfer targets before the September 1 deadline.

Earlier in the transfer window, highly rated Sweden international Bergvall emerged as one of Newcastle’s midfield options after slipping down the pecking order in North London.

Although the Magpies have maintained an interest throughout the summer, the delay in turning that interest into a formal move has left many supporters wondering what has held things up.

A likely explanation for Newcastle’s caution could be UEFA-related legislation commonly referred to as the '45-day rule'.

On July 6, Sandro Tonali joined Tottenham in a reported £92.5 million transfer. Under the newly applied regulations, if two clubs buy and sell players to each other within a 45-day period, those deals are officially treated as a 'swap deal' for accounting purposes.

The rule was brought in by the Premier League’s financial regulators to shut down an accounting loophole created by reciprocal transfer arrangements that were used to artificially boost a club’s short-term profits in order to remain compliant with Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

Newcastle supporters will remember a major example of this kind of reciprocal arrangement from two summers ago, when before the June 30 accounting deadline in 2024, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest avoided breaking PSR limits by agreeing to two technically separate deals.

Newcastle sold academy graduate Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest for £35m, while Forest sold goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos to Newcastle for £20m.

Both clubs secured an immediate PSR benefit, which helped them stay within the admittedly flawed PSR framework.

Looking at this summer, if Newcastle had signed Bergvall during the 45-day period after Tonali’s move, they would only have been able to record the net difference between the two transfers. That would effectively have removed the accounting benefit of Tonali’s big-money exit. The 45-day period ends on August 20.

From the 2026/27 season onwards, the current Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) will be fully replaced by the new Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) system.

Under that incoming framework, a club’s total spending on football operations, including transfer amortisation, player wages and agent fees, will be capped at 85 per cent of its overall football-related revenue.

Profit made directly from player sales also has a direct impact on a club’s spending limit. By making sure Tonali’s departure and Bergvall’s arrival are recorded as entirely separate transactions, Newcastle’s hierarchy can register the full profit immediately. That would give the club vital room to comply with the incoming Squad Cost Limits and strengthen Newcastle’s spending capacity during the important transitional years ahead.