st albans fox

it’s standard procedure for efl to put clubs in special measures if they expect the club to break psr by a substantial amount and potentially they consider the club should not spend any money to protect its future. It’s posturing but it’s justifiable imo. Ordinarily the club and the efl would be talking about the situation, giving their budgets and intentions. But it’s clear we aren’t on speaking terms ! No

assuming we stay down, the efl can only screw us if we fail to sell enough players in June. It’s likely but it’s not a certainty I’m not a lawyer and I don’t have the epl rules and regs to hand !

Depends if they’ve got their ducks in a row legally if we squirm our way out of this on technicalities then you can be sure they’ll want to see everything we’re up to for years to come

We proved that they couldn’t ask us to supply our management accounts to end June 2023 in the autumn so they could decide if we were likely to fail psr and be put into special measures (which would likely be a transfer embargo ) but 1st march we had to give them the audited accounts and the club should not be surprised by this development (although they will pretend that they are)

So the gloves are really off with the efl Placing an embargo on us registering new players seems plain weird at this stage of the season. In addition, there is no way that they can be sure we will fail psr this year as we have June to make sig player sales and be ok. However, the efl have stated publicly that they are pro active in attempting to prevent any of their clubs falling foul of financial disaster - allowing us to trade once the window opens and then we don’t sell anyone and fail psr by a big margin whilst buying a few new players would raise questions of their plausibility in this regard. it’s not really a surprise, despite the club making a public statement . Suspect the issue is more that the efl made the embargo public.

Kdh linked to yanited

this from the MEN a few days ago (for avoidance of doubt, City = Man City) There are accusations with not co-operating with the Premier League investigation, not abiding by PSR regulations, and - most damningly - nine seasons of essentially not giving truthful and accurate information about their finances. These are incredibly damaging allegations that, if proven (and it's a big if), would warrant incredibly serious punishments. Barely any details of the case can be made public, although a date for City's hearing has been set. It is expected to be later in 2024, with the intention of everything being cleared up by the end of the 2024/25 campaign. Why has it taken so long? City were charged in February 2023, so the whole process could take over two years to complete. That feels like a long time, and Pep Guardiola is included in the long list of people who would like it wrapped up sooner. However, because the list of charges is so long and complicated and because the consequences of the hearing will be so monumental, time has to be given for everything to be done properly. As football finance expert Kieran Maguire told the Manchester Evening News at the time: "The Premier League is shooting itself in the foot. If you have 100 charges, you need to have the time to have 100 defences." City haven't 'got away with it', it is just their day of reckoning is further away because it is so much more complex. Why are City treated differently to other clubs? City are treated differently to clubs such as Everton and Nottingham Forest because their situations are completely different. City aren't so much disputing multiple murder charges as claiming that there is no victim, whereas according to the Premier League both Everton and Forest have accepted breaches but believe their reasons for doing so is enough mitigation to avoid strict punishment. As Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said when speaking at a select committee: "They are very different charges. If any club, whether they are the current champions or otherwise, had been found in breach of the spending rules for year '23, they would be in exactly the same position as Everton or Nottingham Forest. "The volume and character of the charges laid before Man City, which I cannot talk about at all, are being heard in a completely different environment. There is a date set for that proceeding." Why not deal with City first though? Again, this is a reasonable enough thought but one that doesn't tie in with the reality of what the clubs have already decided. Everton, Nottingham Forest and everyone else agreed to a set of rule changes at the Premier League AGM in 2023 to speed up straightforward cases. This meant that standard directions were put in place for PSR cases to be handled in the season in which the breaches occurred so that everybody can be happy that nobody has got away with an unfair competitive advantage. City's breaches are historical, and denied, so they are not straightforward. Work is also being done on the case at the same time as others are being dealt with, it just takes longer for all the reasons set out above. Doesn't that mean City are getting away with it? If they are found to have breached PSR and systemically misrepresented their finances, they will have operated with an unfair competitive advantage for years. That's why, if the Premier League prove the case, the consequences will be more in line with expulsion from the league rather than a few points being deducted. At the same time, the most significant charges are so serious that it will take a high bar of evidence to support the claims. "It would not be good enough for the Premier League to argue that Manchester City failed to co-operate with the Premier League’s investigation," write Dr Dan Plumley and Dr Gregory Ioannidis in an academic paper in the International Sports Law Review. "The Premier League would have to go beyond this, by proving that Manchester City, as a matter of fact and evidence, failed to produce accurate financial information (and/or lied about it) in relation to their revenue, within the meaning of the current regulations. This is not an easy burden for the Premier League. But it should not be easy, because the allegations produced are of a very serious nature." It's not a perfect system, but it is the system that everyone signed up for.

Just to upset you even more, hamza’s previous deal was 60k/week

It’s to do with brown envelopes before covid (so not psr related)

Yes this is correct BUT what if by the time they issue the sanction (at the end of April ?) we are 9 points ahead of third place? from their perspective, a good outcome is we can take the points this season and still go up. then there is no PL sanction to be applied next season. We trade a few players in June and don’t break EFL ffp to end June 2024. Case closed! of course the strong likelihood is that we appeal and PL points sanction gets pushed back to next season. BUT what is the legal position of a championship points sanction being rolled over to the premier league on appeal ?? There is no precedent. It’s a big risk for them to do it so maybe they aren’t in such a strong position if they’re looking at doing it. Hence our comments yesterday about taking action that is unlawful outside jurisdiction of those taking it. I also wonder if we had factored into all of this that we would be so far clear come April that we would be able to take a points deduction this season if the worst happened ??

We think that the is no mechanism for PL sanctions to be applied in the EFL. We had better hope that our legal advice is watertight ……

They might try and rush through the hearing and issue the penalty - it could be that there is something in place whereby the efl can try to impose a PL sanction. Perhaps our attempts to find loopholes has encouraged them to try and impose sanctions in any case and see what happens. but we would appeal and the length of time that takes would go beyond the season end it would be a mess UNLESS we finished the season 7 points ahead of third place my mind goes back to the end of the Bournemouth game last season. Susan Whelan was ashen faced as she walked past me. They really were living in cloud cuckoo land ……..

I will be seeing an Evertonian mate of mine later he's been crying about their points deduction from day 1 I shall take the moral high ground - break the rules and take your medicine

I think that was for signing kids from abroad ???

I assumed we had a decent defence re legal loopholes etc Reading that it could be that ‘we’re upset that the rules stifle ambition’ is a little concerning …….

Yes but that’s a separate enquiry which doesn’t fall under the same season rules that psr does. They haven’t breached psr - yet

Chelsea have to meet the current 3 year rolling rules for this season ending June 30. They did to end June 2023. the clubs will no doubt vote in July to change the rules if it suits them - and I reckon at least 14 will do that. so Chelsea have to find £125m+ of profit (inc amortisation ) on sales this June or they will be charged next March. But they may not suffer anything beyond that if the rule change suits their poor financial position. . Under the existing rules they would need to perform the same trick next season aswell re player sales. Man City have 115 charges. That’s a mistake to begin with. Was always going to take a long time because they aren’t basic spend issues. They relate to ‘dodgy’ sponsorship deals and their place in accounts. Trying to prove that people have lied or behaved dishonestly isn’t easy because ultimately, you need to be able to prove it in a court which is going to be v difficult without strong evidence. If that existed then this would have been dealt with already.

accounts now required to run in line with seasons from player contract start date 1st July to 30th June. We don’t have to file our accounts to end June 2023 until end March 2024 re companies house requirements the PL require sight of those audited accounts by 31 dec as per new rules established July 2023. the efl require management accounts for the current season sometime in the autumn. This will show them the situation to end June and also the likelihood of conforming with psr in the ongoing season.

better not to attend the home games against them. imagine stadiums 90% empty - that really won’t work for the brand on tv around the world

don’t get mentioned at all ? so Man City’s 115 charges must be a mirage …… they won’t just disappear. They will have to be dealt wit( eventually. Way more complex than just spending too much chelsea are in the dirt next season if they don’t sell a shed load of home grown taken this June.

Can only assume that the club were advised it was actually possible for a prem league points deduction to be applied in the championship and therefore best to keep 22/23 hidden till March 1st when they’d have to be revealed to the football league. BUT that wouldn’t give enough time for us to be charged and then heard and then appealed before end of the season by thr PL. that also explains why we fought to stop the efl seeing our management accounts for this season last autumn (cos that would also have alerted the PL if the EFL had passed them on). There must have been a good reason for all this ‘skullduggery’ - otherwise why not just give the prem the accounts at the end of December if we weren’t concerned that we could be punished this season.

Yeah - just listened to that so the efl passed our numbers on which has led the epl to raise the charge. I do wonder if the expected numbers to end June 24 would have included enough detail to end June 23 for the PL to have worked out that we’d breached. you’d have to assume yes or they’d wait till end of the month when the accounts will be filed at companies house

I’m intrigued we didn’t provide the PL with our accounts end dec as they expected us to so they didn’t have the evidence they needed to charge us we still haven’t filed out accounts when did we have to give the efl our expected numbers to end June 24 ? I’m thinking about now?? My point is where have the epl got our numbers from in order to charge us ?? If the efl have passed them over to the epl then I suspect that must have been a couple, weeks ago when the news leaked out that we had failed prem psr for last year to end June.

Definitely we think we have loopholes to exploit Just as our admin 20 years ago brought about the 12 point deduction rule, so this scenario will bring the EFL and EPL together to make agreements that bring the rules into line timing wise on relegated/promoted clubs and sanctions will be applicable in both leagues. If we manage to avoid sanctions on legal technicalities we will not be very popular out there …….

Reform and the tories together = 34% if they do a deal (perhaps also allow a few of them to stand in some uncertain seats with no Tory candidate ) then labour cannot be too blasé about a big majority still time to drop the ball