Gets them off the wage bill to assist with FFP.
Sales/purchases aren't accounted for in one year (so Schneiderlin's fee will only go down as £5.5m on this years accounts if he signs a 4 year deal, Stones only £10m) and we're not poor in terms of cash or credit now so we dont need to sell to buy - just clear up the wage bill to make space.
Pretty sure sales are all in the year they occur.
Otherwise we'd have to base our accounting on something that could be private (the length of his contract) between his new club and the player.
The profit on a sale is definitely accounted for in the year that it happens.
Purchases are spread over the length of the initial contract.
I'd guess these are loans as it's not easy to find buyers.
But we should get a loan fee, plus we'll be saving a million each in wages for Niasse, Cleverley, hopefully Kone, which soon adds up to a decent amount.