Points Deduction AGAIN

[Snowflake Royal]

Yeah I understand we could be breached under a few different areas, but I thought there was a 6 point suspended sentence if we broke a regulation in our business plan? Which reports are suggesting we haven't done as it's historical. So I'm assuming that we still have 6 points suspended because we haven't breached our business plan?

Unless the suspended 6 points was for any breach, be it historical, the business plan etc.

No. The business plan related to this season only. We were also required to meet certain things last season.

So, if we breach our business plan this season, then there is no guarantee of a further points deduction? Even though it would be likely.

You can't apply a suspended sentence twice. It's applied or not.

Nothing prevents a new finding and a new sanction if we breach rules again though, which isn't necessarily the same as breaching the conditions of our business plan.

[Hound]

I’m sure the EFL can find a way

[YorkshireRoyal99]

No. The business plan related to this season only. We were also required to meet certain things last season.

So, if we breach our business plan this season, then there is no guarantee of a further points deduction? Even though it would be likely.

You can't apply a suspended sentence twice. It's applied or not.

Nothing prevents a new finding and a new sanction if we breach rules again though, which isn't necessarily the same as breaching the conditions of our business plan.

That's what I'm saying though, if we do breach the conditions of our business plan (as we are still assuming we haven't), then that would probably result in another points deduction I'd imagine.

[Snowball]

So, if we breach our business plan this season, then there is no guarantee of a further points deduction? Even though it would be likely.

You can't apply a suspended sentence twice. It's applied or not.

Nothing prevents a new finding and a new sanction if we breach rules again though, which isn't necessarily the same as breaching the conditions of our business plan.

That's what I'm saying though, if we do breach the conditions of our business plan (as we are still assuming we haven't), then that would probably result in another points deduction I'd imagine.

This is what worries me. Was the suspended -6 points like a suspended sentence?

That is, if we re-offended for separate -6 or -12 offence would the suspended -6 be added
resulting in a -12 or -18 hit?

I say this, because it "JUST HAPPENS" that -12 would put us down to 32,
one point above the bottom three.

[South Coast Royal]

16 pages of speculation with the usual going round in circles.
Criminals often blame the Justice system rather than accept that they have been law breakers-on here a number of posters are choosing to blame the EFL ( our society always needs somebody to blame as it can't be our fault etc.) without knowing the circumstances whereas the club (based on Ince's statement) are owning up and accepting the consequences.

Professional football is a sleazy business and from the outside our club appears to be very much part of that sleaze.

Dodgy car dealer sells the club to a dodgy Russian without doing due diligence in the naive belief that the Russian has deep pockets.
Dodgy Russian doesn't have deep pockets so along come saviours from the Far East looking for a property investment.
Once that has been profitably negotiated our club is then passed on to a mystery Chinese owner who doesn't seem to understand the rules of our EFL membership.

We are far from being alone in this murky world of football in the 2020s and have been caught out not playing by the rules.
Other clubs have been badly hit by poor management , no worse than Bury, (a club that we historically were at the same level as) and I reckon this season more of the spend, spend, spend clubs will be brought to account.

So, let's just accept our punishment and move on and not get stuck in this "It's all the EFL's fault" blame game.
Where I feel attention should be given much more is to the owner's and director's test for both the PL and EFL where, with better compliance, we and many other clubs would have been prevented from having people like the Russian at the helm.
Our game might then not be so quite awash with money from across the world but could just be a cleaner industry-am not holding my breath though.

[Stranded]

You can't apply a suspended sentence twice. It's applied or not.

Nothing prevents a new finding and a new sanction if we breach rules again though, which isn't necessarily the same as breaching the conditions of our business plan.

That's what I'm saying though, if we do breach the conditions of our business plan (as we are still assuming we haven't), then that would probably result in another points deduction I'd imagine.

This is what worries me. Was the suspended -6 points like a suspended sentence?

That is, if we re-offended for separate -6 or -12 offence would the suspended -6 be added
resulting in a -12 or -18 hit?

I say this, because it "JUST HAPPENS" that -12 would put us down to 32,
one point above the bottom three.

The -6 is specific to the agreement and for breaches of that. However, if the breach is P&S related then, according to the agreement, we will get the suspended 6 and any new punishment added to it. So we could theoretically see a -12 or -18 depending on the severity of the breach.

If we agree a punishment, I would imagine it will be on the lighter side if it is "historical" but more than 6 is definitely possible.

[tmesis]

We are far from being alone in this murky world of football in the 2020s and have been caught out not playing by the rules.

The speculation is because we are a bit puzzled as to what rules we have broken, given that all signings have to be ratified by the football league.

It appears to be a historic breach, rather than this season, and can only have happened after the agreed business plan was drawn up, or we couldn't have breached the plan.

I guess it's possible that the league don't do any more than check the salary is under a certain limit, and don't check our total wage bill, but that would be daft on their part, and exceedingly stupid on ours, if we broke it.

[Dirk Gently]

We are far from being alone in this murky world of football in the 2020s and have been caught out not playing by the rules.

The speculation is because we are a bit puzzled as to what rules we have broken, given that all signings have to be ratified by the football league.

It appears to be a historic breach, rather than this season, and can only have happened after the agreed business plan was drawn up, or we couldn't have breached the plan.

I guess it's possible that the league don't do any more than check the salary is under a certain limit, and don't check our total wage bill, but that would be daft on their part, and exceedingly stupid on ours, if we broke it.

If it's not a stupid question, if this is a historic breach, rather than relating to this season, how can a penalty be applied now? What action could we have possibly taken to avoid something that had already happened - and why was punishment not applied then?

If true, that breaks all the rules of natural justice.

[Elm Park Kid]

This is basically just a therapy session for our fans to go through the grieving process:

Shock - "Where has this come from?"

Denial - "I don't believe a word of it. Just newspaper stories. Look at the EFL statement . . etc"

Anger - "The EFL are just out to get us."

Bargaining - "Surely the club can come to some sort of arrangement with the EFL."

Depression - "We're getting relegated".

Acceptance - "At least 6 points won't be too bad. We should still stay up. Probably deserve it."

[tidus_mi2]

Hopefully if there is a corner to fight, we fight it this time because clearly there are no advantages to cooperating with the EFL.

[Hound]

Don’t think anyone really thinks we didn’t deserve our initial punishment or that we haven’t done wrong SCR

As you say football is currently clouded in this sort of nonsense and like you say we are ‘far from being alone. So the issue here is why are we being punished again when we are apparently playing by the rules and have been for a year

Also think ‘just accepting our punishment’ when you see the likes of Stoke losing millions but finding dodgy loopholes or just not being looked at, or teams doing what we did and worse but escaping sanction because they did more of it and got success (Wolves) is also a little weak

There may be a perfectly good reason to be fined again but until that becomes clear I think we’ve a right to feel a little aggrieved and obvs speculate

[Stranded]

We are far from being alone in this murky world of football in the 2020s and have been caught out not playing by the rules.

The speculation is because we are a bit puzzled as to what rules we have broken, given that all signings have to be ratified by the football league.

It appears to be a historic breach, rather than this season, and can only have happened after the agreed business plan was drawn up, or we couldn't have breached the plan.

I guess it's possible that the league don't do any more than check the salary is under a certain limit, and don't check our total wage bill, but that would be daft on their part, and exceedingly stupid on ours, if we broke it.

If it's not a stupid question, if this is a historic breach, rather than relating to this season, how can a penalty be applied now? What action could we have possibly taken to avoid something that had already happened - and why was punishment not applied then?

If true, that breaks all the rules of natural justice.

Ince called it historic - which likely means an issue at the club that occured before he arrived at the end of February. Accounts have just been submitted for last season, if those accounts show we have breached last season then as far as Ince is concerned they are historic.

It seems most likely that we are meeting the terms of the plan now but were unable to last year for whatever reason. Naturally, it may transpire that this is from earlier than 2021/22 in which case that is a different question.

[Snowflake Royal]

So, if we breach our business plan this season, then there is no guarantee of a further points deduction? Even though it would be likely.

You can't apply a suspended sentence twice. It's applied or not.

Nothing prevents a new finding and a new sanction if we breach rules again though, which isn't necessarily the same as breaching the conditions of our business plan.

That's what I'm saying though, if we do breach the conditions of our business plan (as we are still assuming we haven't), then that would probably result in another points deduction I'd imagine.

You need to distinguish between the plan, and a further FFP breach, which aren’t necessarily the same thing, though are likely very closely linked.

[Snowflake Royal]

We are far from being alone in this murky world of football in the 2020s and have been caught out not playing by the rules.

The speculation is because we are a bit puzzled as to what rules we have broken, given that all signings have to be ratified by the football league.

It appears to be a historic breach, rather than this season, and can only have happened after the agreed business plan was drawn up, or we couldn't have breached the plan.

I guess it's possible that the league don't do any more than check the salary is under a certain limit, and don't check our total wage bill, but that would be daft on their part, and exceedingly stupid on ours, if we broke it.

If it's not a stupid question, if this is a historic breach, rather than relating to this season, how can a penalty be applied now? What action could we have possibly taken to avoid something that had already happened - and why was punishment not applied then?

If true, that breaks all the rules of natural justice.

Ruling based on forecasts and interim figures. Actual figures when published (now ish) may show that those interim figures were incorrect.

Remember there is a window between us being penalised and the end of last season. Something could have happened post penalty being applied but relating to a period before this season.

Given all the bonus clauses possible in wages, it's conceivable we had to pay more in end of season bonuses than predicted for example.

We simply don't have enough info to speculate on what the trigger is..just that it's pretty clear we have failed to meet our agreed obligations in some way at some point in the last 12 months or so.

[Hound]

Still a bit strange when we were under embargo and limited to 8.5pw on wages under Pauno as well. We had the legacy high wages of swift and co but that was a known

It’s hard to see how we could have gone too far wrong in the year before Bowen came in tbh. And again think we had to run all our signings and contracts past the EFL then as well

I mean we signed nobody of much cost. AC on 1k a week and a few cheap freebies like Halilovic and Hoilett. But that was it

[Mid Sussex Royal]

My understanding is the new deduction is due to the loss in 2021/22 season where the financials have just been published, but weren't the EFL signing off all transfers last season as well as this? Surely we can't be punished again for historic contracts we're committed to, which have caused the loss?

Daily Mail now saying Peterboro are looking at the position, they prob have a case against the EFL in fairness if we are docked another 6 points re a previous accounting period, but surely not against us, we didn't set the punishment.

[tmesis]

When Moore got injured at Stoke, did he return to Reading, or did Stoke have to keep him? (for the rest of the season)

[tidus_mi2]

My understanding is the new deduction is due to the loss in 2021/22 season where the financials have just been published, but weren't the EFL signing off all transfers last season as well as this? Surely we can't be punished again for historic contracts we're committed to, which have caused the loss?

Daily Mail now saying Peterboro are looking at the position, they prob have a case against the EFL in fairness if we are docked another 6 points re a previous accounting period, but surely not against us, we didn't set the punishment.

The counter argument would be we put out non-performances in the last three games when we were safe, Blackpool might not have named a much changed squad and basically gifted Boro a 5-0 win if there was something riding on the game.

[Nameless]

Yeah I understand we could be breached under a few different areas, but I thought there was a 6 point suspended sentence if we broke a regulation in our business plan? Which reports are suggesting we haven't done as it's historical. So I'm assuming that we still have 6 points suspended because we haven't breached our business plan?

Unless the suspended 6 points was for any breach, be it historical, the business plan etc.

Once again I will recommend reading the agreed decision….

Cheers for that you were a great help as always.

So have you read it ?
It might avoid you asking questions or making assumptions that are really easy for you to check yourself .

[Nameless]

Yeah I understand we could be breached under a few different areas, but I thought there was a 6 point suspended sentence if we broke a regulation in our business plan? Which reports are suggesting we haven't done as it's historical. So I'm assuming that we still have 6 points suspended because we haven't breached our business plan?

Unless the suspended 6 points was for any breach, be it historical, the business plan etc.

Once again I will recommend reading the agreed decision….

Cheers for that you were a great help as always.

So have you read it ?
It might avoid you asking questions or making assumptions that are really easy for you to check yourself .