Leicester 'could face points deduction next season'

[STUHILL]

Not that we should care, but I was curious what other fans thought of this and was expecting a pile on, but the overall feeling out there seems to be that the whole thing is a complete joke, and the smaller clubs are being targeted with these rules whilst Man City and Chelsea continue to get away with everything. 

 

 

[urban.spaceman]

10 minutes ago, STUHILL said:

Not that we should care, but I was curious what other fans thought of this and was expecting a pile on, but the overall feeling out there seems to be that the whole thing is a complete joke, and the smaller clubs are being targeted with these rules whilst Man City and Chelsea continue to get away with everything. 

Unfortunately doesn't appear to be a common believe, despite being the absolute truth.

 

The only reason these rules exist is to prevent another Man City or Chelsea buying their way into the "big six". That's why our odds to win the league were 5000-1. It should have been impossible. They never, in a millions years, thought a club could come from nowhere and win the league on pure merit. 

 

And they've been punishing us ever since. Restricted earnings, diminished spending power, Project Big Picture, European Super League, PSR. They're deliberately making an example of us to make it very clear to every other club that they shouldn't even try to compete, because this is what will happen.

 

That's what the club needs to challenge. 

[Chrysalis]

14 hours ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

Leeds in the transfer market alone are on -£196,000,000 for the last 4 seasons including this one. 
 

Us, by comparison in the same period are on +£21,000,000.

 

Leeds will be punished imminently. 

When I looked at their figures posted a few weeks back they were significantly more healthy than ours.

 

From what I remember much lower wages, and a higher amount of income that wasnt reliant on EPL TV money.

 

Of course that doesnt mean everything will be hunky dory for them, but I remember posting an opinion at the time they were looking the safest financially out of the 3 relegated clubs.

 

--

 

I read an interview from the new CEO of Manchester United, he made the point that when you have success on the pitch, as a CEO, COO whatever you have to take advantage of that and push up off the field revenues, something I remain frustrated to this day we failed to do.  He also is an indicator CEO's play a big role in player recruitment and contracts (at least at some clubs).

Edited 3 April 2024 by Chrysalis

[STUHILL]

2 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

When I looked at their figures posted a few weeks back they were significantly more healthy than ours.

 

From what I remember much lower wages, and a higher amount of income that wasnt reliant on EPL TV money.

 

Of course that doesnt mean everything will be hunky dory for them, but I remember posting an opinion at the time they were looking the safest financially out of the 3 relegated clubs.

I think we would have heard rumours by now if they were in the sh1t. We have been hearing about our issues for weeks now.

Of course, it would help massively if other clubs get dragged into this. We need it to become such a farce that the PL and EFL have to change their approach.

[Chrysalis]

8 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

From the website:

 

Leicester City Football Club today publishes its financial accounts for the year ending 30 June 2023.

The accounting period corresponded with a season which saw Leicester City’s relegation from the Premier League. The Club’s investment in its First Team playing squad – a strategy reflected in eight previous seasons of high performance in the top flight – was, for the first time, not matched by on-pitch results.

The consequences of this disappointment, combined with the costs arising from the Club’s long-term commitment to maintaining a strong squad of players, were the primary factors behind a pre-tax loss of £89.7M (2022: £92.5M loss).

While turnover for the year decreased to £177.3M (2022: £214.6M), commercial revenues increased, with gate receipts up £1.4M, sponsorship revenue up £1.3M and commercial turnover up by £1M. The fall in turnover was primarily due to a reduction in Premier League merit payments and broadcast revenues, and the Club’s absence from European competition for the first time in three seasons.

The Club realised a net profit on player trading of £74.8M in the accounting period (£9.2M in 2022), though this increase was offset by a significantly lower-than-budgeted league position and a costly change in First Team management structure. 

The Club’s commitment to the growth of women’s football in Leicestershire continued, with further investment in players, staff and facilities to aid the development of LCFC Women. The team’s second season in the Women’s Super League saw them improve on both their points total and finishing position from the previous campaign, securing a third successive season of top-flight football.

Over recent years, the Club's financial results have reflected necessary levels of investment in the men’s playing squad that allowed LCFC to compete with the most established clubs in the Premier League. The underlying security to pursue those ambitions has been, and continues to be, provided by the Club’s parent company, King Power International (KPI), under the leadership of Chairman Khun Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha. His and his family’s support for the Club remains as strong as it has ever been. Indeed, the 2022/23 accounting period records Khun Aiyawatt’s conversion of £194M of loans and related interest owed to KPI into equity, relieving the Club of significant outstanding debt to its parent company.

LCFC remains engaged in a confidential process with the Premier League and the English Football League, regarding the Club’s Profitability and Sustainability calculations. The Club is determined to ensure that any charges against it are properly and proportionately resolved, in accordance with the applicable rules, by the right bodies, and at the right time.

Leicester City Chief Executive Susan Whelan said: “After a sustained period of growth and success for the Club during the last decade, the 2022/23 season was a significant setback, the consequences of which will be felt for some time. We must now focus on rebuilding and seeking to return to and re-establishing ourselves in the Premier League.

"Having achieved finishing positions in the Premier League of fifth, fifth and eighth in the three preceding seasons, our targets and associated budgets for 2022/23 were entirely reasonable. However, for a club such as ours, whose sustained sporting achievements have justified the levels of investment required to compete with the most established clubs and pursue our ambition, a season of such significant under-performance on the pitch presents financial challenges, particularly from the perspective of the game’s current Profitability and Sustainability rules.

“The long-term and ongoing financial security and commitment provided by Khun Aiyawatt, the Srivaddhanaprabha family and King Power International, enables the Club to rebuild with certainty and confidence. We’re infinitely grateful for the faith and support of our fans, whose commitment and loyalty continue to inspire our mission to restore Leicester City to the level at which we all want it to compete.”

Click HERE to view.

Its good Whelan has finally put her name to a statement.  But the comment seems to indicate an element of delusion, if anything I felt our 8th place finish masked the problems emerging, by the start of the season the football was well into its decline, Rodgers was already almost done.  Then the club from this statement seem to think adding standing still on the squad on top of that, they were expecting another 5th-8th place finish.

[Gamble92]

13 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

When I looked at their figures posted a few weeks back they were significantly more healthy than ours.

 

From what I remember much lower wages, and a higher amount of income that wasnt reliant on EPL TV money.

 

Of course that doesnt mean everything will be hunky dory for them, but I remember posting an opinion at the time they were looking the safest financially out of the 3 relegated clubs.

 

--

 

I read an interview from the new CEO of Manchester United, he made the point that when you have success on the pitch, as a CEO, COO whatever you have to take advantage of that and push up off the field revenues, something I remain frustrated to this day we failed to do.  He also is an indicator CEO's play a big role in player recruitment and contracts (at least at some clubs).

Segrave should have come years after the stadium expansion 

[Chrysalis]

8 hours ago, Number 6 said:

And yet we needed Fofana to chuck his toys out of the pram to sell him!? What the ****. Clearly had no intention of ever complying. Damning.

Yeah it gets even worse when you consider that.

[Chrysalis]

8 hours ago, The Bear said:

£200m wage bill. Kin hell how have you managed that? 

Our leaders acting like we beaten football and made it up there as a club, building Seagrave so soon is kind of indicative of that as well.

I guess when we posted those world record profits it must have felt like we had money to burn whenever we want and we could do whatever we want without repercussion moving forward.

[Chrysalis]

8 hours ago, Bryn said:

If we make it up, we're probably going to have to just tackle the deficit and accept we will probably go straight down again.

 

I think the best way to plan for future success from this position is to develop a young side, hopefully from the Premier League but probably from the Championship.

We need a reset really, new young motivated squad cheap to build and on very low wages, the ffotball ideology obviously needs to go as well, which will upset some people, but its the reality.

 

From here we reset our financial base back to within our status as a club, and once thats done providing we at least a mid table championship team, we will still be attractive once thats done as we are the 6th most successful English club in recent times.  So will be a bigger pulling power for the best lower league players over stoke etc.

[Chrysalis]

7 hours ago, FrankieADZ said:

yeah thats cos Top hasnt got the balls to sack him pal;

think we've all been calling him to go for yrs

Top is complicit in this, Rudkin doesnt approve his own budget and decide the direction of the entire club, legal stance etc.

[Tom12345]

On 14/03/2024 at 21:25, ClaphamFox said:

I just saw this for the first time. It's the full text of the ruling of the panel that reduced Everton's deduction from ten to six points. What's interesting about it is that it places great emphasis on sporting advantage - ie, the extent to which Everton benefited from breaching the PSR limit over the period. It seems to be a major factor in the way they determine the appropriate punishment. If our case is judged in the same way, the fact that we got relegated might actually save us from a points deduction for the 2020-2023 period. Obviously if we get promoted this season having breached, it will be a different matter altogether.

https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2024/02/26/b1c920ab-c053-4414-913a-c529efd27d18/Everton-FC-and-Premier-League-appeal-decision-260224.pdf

Good point. We suffered our losses not because of us paying a lot to get an advantage, but because we underperformed and suffered relegation (and therefore loss of revenue associated with that).

[Claudio Fannieri]

I defended the initial club statement at the time, too be honest I wish to retract that now after seeing the financial performance and the magnitude of the potential breach, the fact is we never had any serious intentions of getting anywhere close to compliance.

 

The stance of the club would be fully justified had it been a very small breach but for us to have been as damning of Everton and being reported we could potentially

sue, to then posting these figures is just downright absurd and embarrassing. 
 

When you consider that Fofana was sold, only after kicking off and refusing to play once the Chelsea interest crystallised,

and then Madders was sold for a cut price fee approaching the end of June deadline, to top it all off we then had our busiest January window for years and but for Leeds pulling the plug we would have shelled out another £20m, albeit this would have been amortised, and handed out another £100,000 a week contract, to Jack Harrison. 
 

Whilst I hate the PSR rules, make no mistake this breach demonstrates how poorly we have been managed in recent years, whatever punishment we get, we absolutely deserve, the arrogance, incompetence and ineptitude of the ownership and senior management who have enabled this to happen is beyond approach. 
 

Heads have to roll for this, our finances are out of control and in pursuit of ambition we have actually created a mentality where everyone is already handsomely remunerated for mediocrity. There is no jeopardy for the players anymore and this led to a malaise and relegation. 
 

The culture of the club changed and with it came relegation and financial meltdown. For that reason Top has to show a ruthlessness not demonstrated before, remove Rudkin and Whelan, push the reset button financially and most importantly change the culture of accepting poor performance on and off the field. 
 

We need to go to a model where players and staff are paid a competitive basic salary but heavily performance incentivised and a move back to attracting young hungry players. 

[Sly]

To my knowledge, doesn’t infrastructure etc whilst impacting the clubs finances, not count toward PCR? 
 

I know wages is the major issue here, however some of this can be written off, so the actual PCR result will be smaller? 

[ClaphamFox]

1 hour ago, Sly said:

To my knowledge, doesn’t infrastructure etc whilst impacting the clubs finances, not count toward PCR? 
 

I know wages is the major issue here, however some of this can be written off, so the actual PCR result will be smaller? 

Yes it does, but it isn’t going to get us close to complying with PSR. Our best hope is that once the deductibles are accounted for, our PSR breach is brought to a level that is merely ‘significant’ (the same category as Forest’s and Everton’s) rather than ‘major’.

 

Getting promoted is imperative. We’ll still be in for a rocky ride, but the additional revenue from being in the Premier League will put us in a far better position than if we stay down and receive much lower income while dealing with a vindictive EFL determined to make an example of us.

 

IF we go up and our PSR breach is deemed only ‘significant’, I suspect we’ll get a 6-8 point deduction. That will make survival difficult but not necessarily impossible. New players will arrive in the summer but we’ll clearly have to go back to relying on good scouting rather than splashing cash. I suspect we’ll try to recruit one or two of the better Championship players we’ve faced this season and hope they can step up, as well as some relatively unknown young players from foreign leagues.

 

The PSR system will likely be replaced soon. If it is, that will save us from the possibility of an ongoing cycle of annual breaches. I suspect the personnel at the top of the club won’t change much, irrespective of how much clamour there is for it. The club will have known about the situation we’re in for a long time and nobody has been sacked - why would they suddenly act now the figures are public? Our ridiculous overspend on wages was not down to one or two individuals going off piste behind Top’s back, but rather a collective responsibility at board level. We just need to hope that the board has actually learned its lesson this time and that we’re finally on track to becoming a club that operates within the rules once again. 
 

It goes without saying that the next seven games are massive. If the players continue putting in the level of effort they showed against Norwich, we’ll go up. We can then face up to the PSR music as a PL side rather than a Championship one. 

 

Edited 3 April 2024 by ClaphamFox

[ForestAreMagic]

5 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Unfortunately doesn't appear to be a common believe, despite being the absolute truth.

 

The only reason these rules exist is to prevent another Man City or Chelsea buying their way into the "big six". That's why our odds to win the league were 5000-1. It should have been impossible. They never, in a millions years, thought a club could come from nowhere and win the league on pure merit. 

 

And they've been punishing us ever since. Restricted earnings, diminished spending power, Project Big Picture, European Super League, PSR. They're deliberately making an example of us to make it very clear to every other club that they shouldn't even try to compete, because this is what will happen.

 

That's what the club needs to challenge. 

Totally agree with this.  Forest, Leicester, Stoke and others have super-wealthy owners who want to spend to make their clubs great again, but aren’t allowed to.  Even if we stay up, we’ll have to sell MGW or  Murillo by end of June. Villa might have to sell Watkins.  Big historic Midlands clubs aren’t being allowed to compete with London and the NW

 

It’s starting to create unusual alliances of opinions between fans of clubs that don’t usually like each other.

[ClaphamFox]

18 minutes ago, ForestAreMagic said:

Totally agree with this.  Forest, Leicester, Stoke and others have super-wealthy owners who want to spend to make their clubs great again, but aren’t allowed to.  Even if we stay up, we’ll have to sell MGW or  Murillo by end of June. Villa might have to sell Watkins.  Big historic Midlands clubs aren’t being allowed to compete with London and the NW

 

It’s starting to create unusual alliances of opinions between fans of clubs that don’t usually like each other.

On the When You’re Smiling podcast last night, Kieran Maguire said: “Leicester’s title win was a 5000-1 occurrence. After it happened, the big six set about changing the rules [re: TV money] to make it a 50,000-1 occurrence.” 
 

I thought that summed it up pretty well. 

[Seventyseven]

39 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

Yes it does, but it isn’t going to get us close to complying with PSR. Our best hope is that once the deductibles are accounted for, our PSR breach is brought to a level that is merely ‘significant’ (the same category as Forest’s and Everton’s) rather than ‘major’.

 

Getting promoted is imperative. We’ll still be in for a rocky ride, but the additional revenue from being in the Premier League will put us in a far better position than if we stay down and receive much lower income while dealing with a vindictive EFL determined to make an example of us.

 

IF we go up and our PSR breach is deemed only ‘significant’, I suspect we’ll get a 6-8 point deduction. That will make survival difficult but not necessarily impossible. New players will arrive in the summer but we’ll clearly have to go back to relying on good scouting rather than splashing cash. I suspect we’ll try to recruit one or two of the better Championship players we’ve faced this season and hope they can step up, as well as some relatively unknown young players from foreign leagues.

 

The PSR system will likely be replaced soon. If it is, that will save us from the possibility of an ongoing cycle of annual breaches. I suspect the personnel at the top of the club won’t change much, irrespective of how much clamour there is for it. The club will have known about the situation we’re in for a long time and nobody has been sacked - why would they suddenly act now the figures are public? Our ridiculous overspend on wages was not down to one or two individuals going off piste behind Top’s back, but rather a collective responsibility at board level. We just need to hope that the board has actually learned its lesson this time and that we’re finally on track to becoming a club that operates within the rules once again. 
 

It goes without saying that the next seven games are massive. If the players continue putting in the level of effort they showed against Norwich, we’ll go up. We can then face up to the PSR music as a PL side rather than a Championship one. 

 

Nice to be optimistic but we are going to have to raise money from sales on promotion so recruitment would have to be like something we have never seen before to be competitive.

 

we also have lower losses for this season in the EFL.
 

we look pretty ****ed. 

[Dames]

With those losses does this mean essentially we are going to be docked points every season for the next 3 at least because our losses will always be over 105 million? 
 

Theres no way we are making enough profit to offset that, we dont have the saleable assets. 

[Lad1966]

Next years accounts will show approx £26m in wages (offset by lost in tv revenue) and further saving of another approx £21m in wages of players contracts coming to an end for 24/25 accounts. Thats why getting promoted this is so important. The clubs financial viability isnt at stake there, but meeting financial FFP is, which will some sort of penalty depending which league we are in. I suspect the EPL will hit us harder, with less wiggle room. I guess we will need to use the loan market and free transfers until we get back to some so kind of normality 

Edited 3 April 2024 by Lad1966

[st albans fox]

3 hours ago, Sly said:

To my knowledge, doesn’t infrastructure etc whilst impacting the clubs finances, not count toward PCR? 
 

I know wages is the major issue here, however some of this can be written off, so the actual PCR result will be smaller? 

we have to find approx £35m per year allowables to deduct to meet the 105m 

covid muddied the waters on previous seasons so difficult to work out what we claimed last two seasons 

 

 

[eblair]

15 minutes ago, Lad1966 said:

Next years accounts will show approx £26m in wages (offset by lost in tv revenue) and further saving of another approx £21m in wages of players contracts coming to an end for 24/25 accounts. Thats why getting promoted this is so important. The clubs financial viability isnt at stake there, but meeting financial FFP is, which will some sort of penalty depending which league we are in. I suspect the EPL will hit us harder, with less wiggle room. I guess we will need to use the loan market and free transfers until we get back to some so kind of normality 

Not sure I follow. Wages will be reduced by £26m or to £26m

 

If the first we are fooked. The second is also not happening in a million years 

[JimmyC74]

1 hour ago, ClaphamFox said:

Yes it does, but it isn’t going to get us close to complying with PSR. Our best hope is that once the deductibles are accounted for, our PSR breach is brought to a level that is merely ‘significant’ (the same category as Forest’s and Everton’s) rather than ‘major’.

 

Getting promoted is imperative. We’ll still be in for a rocky ride, but the additional revenue from being in the Premier League will put us in a far better position than if we stay down and receive much lower income while dealing with a vindictive EFL determined to make an example of us.

 

IF we go up and our PSR breach is deemed only ‘significant’, I suspect we’ll get a 6-8 point deduction. That will make survival difficult but not necessarily impossible. New players will arrive in the summer but we’ll clearly have to go back to relying on good scouting rather than splashing cash. I suspect we’ll try to recruit one or two of the better Championship players we’ve faced this season and hope they can step up, as well as some relatively unknown young players from foreign leagues.

 

The PSR system will likely be replaced soon. If it is, that will save us from the possibility of an ongoing cycle of annual breaches. I suspect the personnel at the top of the club won’t change much, irrespective of how much clamour there is for it. The club will have known about the situation we’re in for a long time and nobody has been sacked - why would they suddenly act now the figures are public? Our ridiculous overspend on wages was not down to one or two individuals going off piste behind Top’s back, but rather a collective responsibility at board level. We just need to hope that the board has actually learned its lesson this time and that we’re finally on track to becoming a club that operates within the rules once again. 
 

It goes without saying that the next seven games are massive. If the players continue putting in the level of effort they showed against Norwich, we’ll go up. We can then face up to the PSR music as a PL side rather than a Championship one. 

 

I agree that culpability sits with more than just Rudkin, but I cannot see after the scale of breach we are talking we can continue as is with *all* the same people in charge.

 

Take Rudders bless him. Someone who has so clearly shown he doesn’t have the chops for the job ain’t going to become a competent operator.

 

If there is no change, IMO I will see no accountability.

[Lad1966]

2 minutes ago, eblair said:

Not sure I follow. Wages will be reduced by £26m or to £26m

 

If the first we are fooked. The second is also not happening in a million years 

These saving are from players whose contracts expired or we’ve sold. For example, we sold Maddison, players like Tilemans, Evan, Perez, etc running their contracts out. They will all be excluded from the 23/24 accounts.

[ClaphamFox]

Just now, JimmyC74 said:

I agree that culpability sits with more than just Rudkin, but I cannot see after the scale of breach we are talking we can continue as is with *all* the same people in charge.

 

Take Rudders bless him. Someone who has so clearly shown he doesn’t have the chops for the job ain’t going to become a competent operator.

 

If there is no change, IMO I will see no accountability.

I'm not arguing that Rudkin is good at his job. I see zero evidence of that. But I get the impression that he's a more of a yes man than somebody with significant decision-making responsibility. The wages and transfer budget would have been set and monitored at board level. People talk of Rudkin and Whelan as if the mess was caused by two individuals who went rogue and messed everything up, whereas in reality the blame should probably be spread more widely than that. Sacking Rudkin might throw a sop to those demanding his head on a platter, but it wouldn't change anything at all unless there was an acceptance at board level of their collective failure.

[fox_up_north]

1 hour ago, ForestAreMagic said:

Totally agree with this.  Forest, Leicester, Stoke and others have super-wealthy owners who want to spend to make their clubs great again, but aren’t allowed to.  Even if we stay up, we’ll have to sell MGW or  Murillo by end of June. Villa might have to sell Watkins.  Big historic Midlands clubs aren’t being allowed to compete with London and the NW

 

It’s starting to create unusual alliances of opinions between fans of clubs that don’t usually like each other.

Midlands Super League, is what I'm getting from this