ClaphamFox

Oh there's no doubt we're trying to delay proceedings. If we played ball and allowed the PL/EFL to impose a points deduction this season, it could mean the difference between promotion or another season in the Championship. That's not a risk we can take. You make a good point about the outcomes of these proceedings being determined by independent panels, not the football authorities themselves. But the onus is still on us to seek the best outcome for ourselves via that process, whether that means challenging the legality of the PL/EFL's actions or making our strongest case for mitigation when the independent panels sit. Yes, it is embarrassing to be in this position again and I hope this finally teaches us to be more responsible in future. In the meantime, if this situation whips up a bit of 'tribalism' among our fans and within the squad, that might actually help us to navigate the next nine games successfully.

Of course it's true that other clubs have been better at cutting their cloth according to FFP/PSR. And it's also true that we aren't unique in seeking to take the authorities on. None of which changes the fact that the alternative to seeking the best outcome for ourselves - whatever form that might take - is to sit back and just hope the EFL and PL treat us fairly and proportionately. I'm not remotely convinced they will. The EFL has already had a hissy fit because we didn't agree to submit an early business plan. If we fail to get promotion, they will very likely try to make an example of us. And even if we do get promoted while breaching again this season, it would not surprise me if they ask the PL to impose an additional points deduction on top of that which we receive for 2020-23. There is no precedent for this (clubs that have previously been promoted while breaching have only received financial penalties), but I would not put it past them to try it. This is why I'm glad we've got Nick De Marco fighting our corner for us. Whatever we've done, I don't want us to be treated unfairly. Any excessive actions from the authorities against us could cast us back into the wilderness for years. We just can't stand aside and let that happen.

If we get promoted, I'll be surprised if our deduction from the PL is more than Everton's. Minus six points will make life harder but not impossible. The question then is whether the EFL try to impose a further deduction if we also breach for this season. If they do, they will be breaking with precedent - previously, clubs that have been promoted to the PL while breaching in the EFL have only received financial penalties. But I wouldn't put it past them to try to make an exception for us.

I read somewhere that our breach for 2020-23 is thought to be 'significant', putting it in the same category as Forest's and Everton's. Our plea for mitigation is likely to largely come down to the fact that we gained no sporting advantage over the period by virtue of getting relegated at the end of it. I've no idea how much ice this will cut with the panel that reviews our case, but hopefully they will at least consider it.

Sometimes supporting a football club means you have to choose heart over head. It is possible to be unhappy with the mistakes the people running the club have made while wholeheartedly backing their efforts to defend us from hostile forces. Irrespective of the poor decisions the club may have made, the fact is that we're now fighting against authorities that will happily fvck us up good and proper if we allow them to. We need everybody united off the pitch for this fight against the PL and EFL as well as on the pitch for the final nine games of the season. After that, an honest dialogue between the club and supporters about our future direction will be required.

I wonder if he talks to his family in that tone of voice at home? "I ASKED you to pass the salt and if you think that your brother is closer to the salt then you need to demonstrate WHY. Because if you can't clearly demonstrate, with appropriate proof, that you should NOT be the one to pass me the salt, then you haven't got a leg to STAND ON. And please SPARE me any virtue signaling nonsense about why I should get the salt myself because when you were born you signed up to the rules of this house, and there's no point in squealing like a STUCK PIG now just because you've decided the rules don't suit you any more..."

They wanted to participate in a closed shop ESL worth hundreds of millions of pounds of extra revenue while simultaneously being allowed to use that massive income injection to dominate the PL, while the rest of the PL would have to get by on a fraction of the money under strict PSR rules and without any possibility of promotion to the ESL Unsurprisingly, this didn't go down well. Competing in a closed shop ESL is clearly completely incompatible with continued participation in the PL, so if they really want the former they'll have to give up the latter. But something tells me their fans might have something to say about the prospect of giving up domestic football...

It's a statistically proven fact, so I'm not sure why you're describing it as 'lazy'. The argument that Mike Gow is making is that the confines being imposed on us are artificial and anti-competitive. This is also what Nick De Marco believes and has been arguing for years. Of course, disagreeing with the PSR limits does not exempt us from them - we still have to follow the rules. But that does not mean we can't express our strong objection to them. Yes, we've made some poor transfer decisions. But the big clubs make terrible decisions all the time. The difference is, the rules enable those clubs to make mistakes with impunity, whereas for clubs like ourselves one or two transfer mistakes could result in relegation. There's plenty to dislike about that.

Let's not get too excited about this just yet - apparently there's a chance the club has breached the rules by providing free beer to our fans, so we may get a points deduction and end up much further down the table...

So it should have gone through the middle but hit the support pylon instead. All ships that sail through Baltimore Habour have to be steered by an officially-licenced local pilot, so it seems likely this was basically human error, albeit on a massive scale. The only positive - if it can be called that - is that this occurred at a time when there were likely far fewer people on the bridge than would have been the case during the day.

I’m with you. Obviously I’d prefer we weren’t in this position, but I admit I do love a good siege mentality. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of feeling like the world hates us and wants us to fail. It’s like a heavy dose of smelling salts - it makes you feel more alive. We’re not going to get the serene end to the season we were expecting, but what we’ve got instead may well turn out to be more memorable. Hopefully in a good way.

We have plenty of money. That’s not the issue.

On balance, we’ll very likely be more fvcked if we stay down. So we may as well go up and get fvcked while raking in more cash, which will hopefully reduce our chances of getting fvcked again in the next accounting period.

That’s not quite what happened, though. They co-operated with the process - they didn’t accept blame. It seems now that they can appeal the four-point penalty with very little risk of being hit with an increased penalty. In such circumstances, why wouldn’t they appeal? They’ve got practically nothing to lose in doing so.

Nick De Marco is on a personal crusade against FFP/PSR. I suspect he’d love nothing more than to bring the whole thing crashing down. The consensus between clubs and the authorities on PSR has completely disintegrated. If the PL/EFL now face an extended legal challenge every single time they try to punish a club, it’s going to become completely unworkable - which is presumably what De Marco intends.

Apparently not:

It's interesting that we have the same lawyer advising us as Forest did, but have adopted a completely different approach to the situation. He must feel our case is different for some reason, though nobody seems to know why...

Thanks. Is there any evidence that the club has tried to include the sale of a fixed asset in its PSR calculation, or is that just an example?

Just listened to the Kevin Day/Kiaran Maguire podcast. They both seemed slightly taken aback by the aggressively defiant stance the club took in the press releases last week. They also highlighted the fact that we've said we'd like to have everything out in public but have been effectively gagged by the process. They interpreted this as the club wanting the PL/EFL to 'show their working' because it disputes their conclusions and wants to let the fans know what's going on. Is there any possibility that the club's aggressive stance is because we genuinely think the PL/FPL have got it wrong? Or do we know we're bang to rights and are just doing everything we can to avoid being punished this season? I assume we're being guided in our approach by Nick De Marco, who is very experienced in these matters. I just find it interesting that we've gone down the 'Ok then, let's have a scrap' route rather than Forest's 'Will you please reduce the punishment if we agree to co-operate?' route...

When does he say that? (I'm about to listen to it...)

Do we know if the Maddison money would enable us to avoid a breach in either the 2020-23 period or the 2021-24 period? Or failing that, would it reduce one of those breaches to a minor one? In other words, is there any way for us to either make one of the breaches go away or reduce it to a level that should not result in a harsh punishment?

It seems we did object when the EFL's FFP rules were introduced in 2014. So whatever other accusations can be levelled at us, I don't think hypocrisy is one of them... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/26/financial-fair-play-clubs-threat-football-league

It will have to be this week, right? Surely won’t do it at the weekend. So maybe four more sleeps until we find out? So exciting - it’ll be like transfer deadline day and the first day of the season rolled into one

Surely this assumption that we’ll be flogging off our best players in June will ultimately come down to whether we’re close enough to complying for 2021-2024 for a few player sales to make the difference. If the offers are so lowball that they won’t enable us to comply with PSR, we may as well keep our best players and give ourselves a decent chance next season. Weakening our squad and getting clobbered with a points deduction for a breach anyway seems a bit pointless.

No. Owynn Palmer-Atkin reckons we can’t.