Points Deduction Incoming!

[Orion1871]

So, the EFL's logic and methods are far, far from perfect. But they are constrained by the fact that football clubs are private entities and that they don't have perfect information on which to operate.

The transfer embargo is basically the best tool the EFL has to force a club to stop spending money. It's not a punishment, it's an attempt to reign in club owners who have been acting 'irresponsibly' according to recent accounts.

The points deduction is then the punishment that is supposed to deter clubs from trying this in the first place. It's not just the case that you will be limited in your spending, but some of the benefits you gained from past spending all that money will be wiped away. It's what should happen.

I honestly think that a 6-9 point deduction would be a more than reasonable punishment for what we've done. I personally would support automatic relegation for clubs that wilfully ignore FFP requirements.

Good post.

I disagree.

All this league will produce is the same bigger teams with parachute payments yo-yo-ing up and down, and maybe occasionally you’ll get a team playing by the FFP rules who scrape through the play offs. It’s not competitive and it’s pretty far from fair.

Definitely not fair. They will deny it and say it's to stop a Portsmouth situation but in reality the whole concept of FFP was initially created to stop the Abramovich type challenge to the old guard.

[Snowflake Royal]

Another conspiracy nut.

[Nameless]

Bizarre thing is we don’t appear to owe anyone any money, we are not in danger of going into administration and we have wealthy owners willing to put money into the club. We’ve not been accused of dodgy accounting or attempting to mislead the authorities. We’ve filed accounts on time. The owners have shown no sign of lacking commitment.
We’ve overspent, but we’ve not done it by failing to pay our bills or dodgy borrowing. We appear to have worked with the league rather than fought against them. The obvious answer is a one off cash injection from the owners to cover the arbitrary amount the league think is ‘acceptable’ and then proceed within the limits going forwatd.

[Hound]

We had a squad of around 28 players in the 19/20 season; don’t think that was the most logical action given the position we were in

Will never be able to fully comprehend the disasters of the two 2017 windows. So many average (at best) players brought in for such little effect. Position only worsened each year since then

yep terrible windows.

Think most of the 28 squad players were players hanging around from previous years business. Got in Joao and Puscas (plus was it Pele and Miazga?) but as mentioned previously, I'd argue those signings kept us up.

Will have to have a scan back through at that squad, but know Bowen was very uncomfortable with the squad size. Actually think even going back to Clement he moaned a fair bit about it. Maybe we could have been more aggressive cutting it.

edit: looking at the squad - yeah definitely some unnecessary signings I'd forgotten about - Adam, Boye then later Araruna and Timbe. At least they were short term

Virginia too although relatively speaking, can’t imagine he would have cost us very much at all

Must admit, don’t particularly share the same thoughts with your reflections on the 2019 window. The squad we had should have been much more capable than relying on a good Christmas period to get us over the line. Rafael and Morrison were the only ones who performed fairly consistently through the season. Miazga kept picking up knocks and the rest only played well in fits and bursts that season. Joao and Ejaria have delivered longer term benefits but I still wouldn’t have classified it as a particularly successful window given that we finished 14th and two managers were sacked by the start of the next season

Ejaria was decent. Puscas and Joao scored 20 between them

Who were our strikers otherwise? Never fit baldock , loader and Novakovic? That’s relegation quality

[Scutterbucketz]

Good post.

I disagree.

All this league will produce is the same bigger teams with parachute payments yo-yo-ing up and down, and maybe occasionally you’ll get a team playing by the FFP rules who scrape through the play offs. It’s not competitive and it’s pretty far from fair.

Its a good post because it acknowledges the flaws.

The whole structure and make up of the league system is a farce with the hoarding of resources and incoming and systemic overspending.

The current alternative is far more financial doping and clubs imploding to much greater degrees.

If it weren't for FFP, we'd have lost tons more for no real improvement in position. And be in much greater danger of liquidation, rather than being forced more towards living in our means.

Yeah sure. And I recognise it’s a complex issue.

The system is well and truly stacked at present though.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Assume Hull will also be impacted, aren't they in the same boat as us ?

[Stranded]

It is what it is. Rules are clear and if we've breached, take the points and move on.

If it's 9 points then we probably need to get 55 to get to 46 which is more than doable for this side. Nothing like a challenge.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

It's only one guy that's reported this...nothing on any mainstream media.

[RG30]

It's only one guy that's reported this...nothing on any mainstream media.

He's an excellent journalist who has an outstanding track record on most things.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Very sad to read this but not a surprise I guess, form a Reading POV hopefully Derby will be deducted more than us which is a help and there is enough average to poor teams in this league for us to survive with minus 6, even minus 9 but would be very tight.

If it’s coming then get on with it, take the points and let’s settle down for alone he’ll of a battle this autumn and winter,

[NathStPaul]

It's only one guy that's reported this...nothing on any mainstream media.

It's the Telegraph not the Sunday Sport.....

[Linden Jones' Tash]

It's only one guy that's reported this...nothing on any mainstream media.

It's the Telegraph not the Sunday Sport.....

They publish Johnson's ramblings so it could all be BS....

[blythspartan]

It is what it is and I couldn’t argue with a 9 points deduction. I just hope that the owners won’t throw us to the wall.

It just makes me want to go to more games and support the team as they’ll need us more than ever this season. I have been negative since the season started but the last 3 games have given me hope. We’ll stay up.

[WestYorksRoyal]

We can stay up with a 9 point deduction. Believe even more if it's just 6. This isn't fatal.

[Fezza]

After a deduction are we free to spend again or do we continue to be constrained, with inevitable further punishments down the road?

[Nameless]

Very sad to read this but not a surprise I guess, form a Reading POV hopefully Derby will be deducted more than us which is a help and there is enough average to poor teams in this league for us to survive with minus 6, even minus 9 but would be very tight.

If it’s coming then get on with it, take the points and let’s settle down for alone he’ll of a battle this autumn and winter,

Derby have had multiple charges laid against them, their owner has taken a very aggressive approach to the EFL. Logically they will get hit far harder than us. However I think they have a 9 point deduction for FFP breaches and then are likely to get a bigger additional deduction for the other charges. We’ve not been charged with any accounting misdemeanours or dishonesty.

[Zip]

After a deduction are we free to spend again or do we continue to be constrained, with inevitable further punishments down the road?

We have to adhere to FFP so if we keep racking up huge debts we will be punished again.

[Fezza]

After a deduction are we free to spend again or do we continue to be constrained, with inevitable further punishments down the road?

We have to adhere to FFP so if we keep racking up huge debts we will be punished again.

So we'll be back in the same situation every year going forward. I thought FFP reset every three years (or did I imagine that?)

[retro royal]

Hopefully we have 100,000 royals TV fans from China bolstering our revenue stream

[tidus_mi2]

After a deduction are we free to spend again or do we continue to be constrained, with inevitable further punishments down the road?

We have to adhere to FFP so if we keep racking up huge debts we will be punished again.

So we'll be back in the same situation every year going forward. I thought FFP reset every three years (or did I imagine that?)

It's rolling, so currently we would be under the 3 year period of 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, next season we would drop the financial results of 2019-20 and add the financial figures of 2022-23.

Now I believe they have extended the current period to 4 years because of covid but that is how it is meant to work, in other words you can have a situation like this:

Season 1: Profit 5m
Season 2: Profit 5m
Season 3: Loss 20m

In that situation you're still easily within FFP limits but that seasonal loss of 20m will really weigh you down as you're unlikely to cut it down so you might end up with something like this in 2 seasons

Season 3: Loss 20m
Season 4: Loss 15m
Season 5: Loss 10m

And just like that, even though you've tried to bring down your losses, you've still hit 45m losses and breached FFP.