Is relegation a price worth paying for avoiding a PSR breach?

[stu]

2 minutes ago, bald reynard said:

But relegation is very likely to bring a (big) points deduction, fines and a transfer embargo, as the EFL seek retribution for 2023/24 financial failures! PL PSR is irrelevant!

Why? We didn’t breach in 23/24?

[bald reynard]

2 minutes ago, bald reynard said:

But relegation is very likely to bring a (big) points deduction, fines and a transfer embargo, as the EFL seek retribution for 2023/24 financial failures! PL PSR is irrelevant!

So I've voted for Option C!

It's a stupid question, considering all the shit we're going to get, WHEN we get relegated!

[ClaphamFox]

Just now, bald reynard said:

So I've voted for Option C!

It's a stupid question, considering all the shit we're going to get, WHEN we get relegated!

On what basis do you believe we’re going to get a big points deduction and a transfer embargo when we’re relegated? Can you at least explain your thinking? 

[bald reynard]

3 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

On what basis do you believe we’re going to get a big points deduction and a transfer embargo when we’re relegated? Can you at least explain your thinking? 

The EFL have said, if they get the chance (ie we go down), they're going to hit us for financial irregularities, with the maximum punishment available  - that is all 3. Do you seriously think we're going to be let off?!

 

A few other EFL clubs have been hit with all 3.

Edited 4 February by bald reynard

[shiv]

17 minutes ago, CUJimmy said:

We would need to sell Mads very early in the window otherwise it wouldn’t be in the same accounting period.

If we’re realistic, his most likely destination is Chelsea and we managed to do a deal in time with KDH. 

[ClaphamFox]

1 minute ago, bald reynard said:

The EFL have said, if they get the chance (ie we go down), they're going to hit us for financial irregularities, with the maximum punishment available  - that is all 3. Do you seriously think we're going to be let off?!

 

A few other EFL clubs have been hit with all 3.

Can you provide a source for where the EFL has said this?

[StanSP]

Such a sorry state of affairs that it comes to this. 

 

Primarily because of how badly mismanaged the club has been, but added to that how PSR has almost ruined football. 

 

How's it even come to this question even being considered?! 

 

Lack of strategy, leadership, accountability, responsibility, honesty. 

 

Pretty much pure neglect at this stage that the board cower away, silent in their offices, beaches or polo fields. 

 

It's really not surprising that fans are turning away. I'm on the way there as well. Perhaps at least until the owners admit they've played things wrongly and made some bad decisions. That they can acknowledge they need to build trust again with the fans because of such mismanagement. 

 

It'd be disgusting if many of the 'advisors' under Top are still here in summer, regardless of survival or relegation. 

 

Like others, I almost want us to be punished with a breach or points deduction. We'd fully deserve it, for starters. And if it meant people losing their jobs they've clung on to then so be it. All we as fans want is our club back, a bit of pride and desire to be better and to be ambitious and back to how we were once perceived barely 10 years ago. 

[Finnegan]

Nobody in here is qualified to answer that question, especially not while emotions are running high. You'd need actual access to our books and a professional level of understanding of the rules and the nuances of how they're implemented. Even the Kieran Maguires of this world are only making educated guesses until they see our returns. 

 

What I would say is that amortisation is a trap that leads to the death spiral we're currently in and too many of us, myself included, end up erroneously thinking "yeah it'll be fine to spend twenty million because we just sold Tom Cannon for a few million profit!" 

 

That's obviously not healthy and obviously not sustainable, especially when you're rushing to make bad choices and recruit sub optimal players in this constant papering over the cracks. 

 

I know I'm in the minority but I'm quietly relieved Woyo was our only nonsense panic buy of the window. It's bad enough we're stuck with Skipp for the next four years, clogging up our amortisation and wage bill. 

 

We'll be in a strong spending position in the summer. I think people, again including myself, have been a tiny bit melodramatic about what's waiting for us in the EFL. We're not definitely going to get shafted, we made a lot of money selling players in the last year. The EFL might be a bit mad at us but they only tried to embargo us because they wanted to know our plans and we said stay out of it it's nothing to do with you, haha. Not because we'd actually done anything wrong at that point. 

 

Yes, Rudkin will still be here, we won't really have learned that lesson. So we're going to be reliant on who the manager is. The good news is we'll be the big dogs again, we'll be in a stronger financial position than last relegation with a smaller wage bill and less PSR drama. So we'll be an attractive prospect for one of the best Championship level managers and we'll probably be able to pull off another round of Winks and Fatawus, getting in players too good for that level. 

 

Obviously limping to survival would be better, of course it would, but I think if we'd done it by shackling ourselves to more deadweight losers for the next three to five years, we'd have been setting ourselves up to stay in that cycle of doom for the next half decade, doing an Everton, permanently circling the drain. 

 

I'd rather not, personally. 

 

Doesn't mean I'm letting the ownership off the hook but it does mean I'm not wildly unhappy with not spending and I am just accepting we're going down and coming to terms with it. 

 

[cityfanlee23]

Okay so hopefully someone can fill me in here, but there is a lot of chatter from many suggesting the EFL are desperate to hammer us with points deductions and massive fines, consigning us to years the championship, I’ve been caught up in this too, but can someone explain how? 
 

What basis do the EFL have to hit us with? We were down there for a single season, we will be receiving parachute payments and are likely to sell atleast 100m in player sales again, our wages will be less than half what they were in 22/23, what would the grounds be for a deduction for example, I’m not trying to argue it won’t happen I’m genuinely just oblivious to what grounds this deduction would be based on. 

[sharpylcfc]

Don't really care. One thing for definite though, sack the board. King Power and Rudkin out. Cause if they were to sell whoever buys us walks in to an absolute mess.

[Finnegan]

5 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Okay so hopefully someone can fill me in here, but there is a lot of chatter from many suggesting the EFL are desperate to hammer us with points deductions and massive fines, consigning us to years the championship, I’ve been caught up in this too, but can someone explain how? 
 

What basis do the EFL have to hit us with? We were down there for a single season, we will be receiving parachute payments and are likely to sell atleast 100m in player sales again, our wages will be less than half what they were in 22/23, what would the grounds be for a deduction for example, I’m not trying to argue it won’t happen I’m genuinely just oblivious to what grounds this deduction would be based on. 

 

It's just largely paranoia. 

 

They can take action against us for the season we were there. A season in which we did almost everything in our power to reduce cost. 

 

We lost a bunch off the wage bill like Tielemans, Soyuncu and Amartey and had a lot of the remaining on wage reduction clauses. We sold Maddison, Barnes and KDH for just short of 100m collectively. 

 

We kept our spend relatively low and we benefited from parachute payments. 

 

We were also objectively good for the league, bringing in additional viewers and media attention. 

 

Other than the fact we had a light tangle with them for trying to get involved with our beef with the Prem, there's not really a great deal there. 

 

[StanSP]

20 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Nobody in here is qualified to answer that question, especially not while emotions are running high. You'd need actual access to our books and a professional level of understanding of the rules and the nuances of how they're implemented. Even the Kieran Maguires of this world are only making educated guesses until they see our returns. 

 

What I would say is that amortisation is a trap that leads to the death spiral we're currently in and too many of us, myself included, end up erroneously thinking "yeah it'll be fine to spend twenty million because we just sold Tom Cannon for a few million profit!" 

 

That's obviously not healthy and obviously not sustainable, especially when you're rushing to make bad choices and recruit sub optimal players in this constant papering over the cracks. 

 

I know I'm in the minority but I'm quietly relieved Woyo was our only nonsense panic buy of the window. It's bad enough we're stuck with Skipp for the next four years, clogging up our amortisation and wage bill. 

 

We'll be in a strong spending position in the summer. I think people, again including myself, have been a tiny bit melodramatic about what's waiting for us in the EFL. We're not definitely going to get shafted, we made a lot of money selling players in the last year. The EFL might be a bit mad at us but they only tried to embargo us because they wanted to know our plans and we said stay out of it it's nothing to do with you, haha. Not because we'd actually done anything wrong at that point. 

 

Yes, Rudkin will still be here, we won't really have learned that lesson. So we're going to be reliant on who the manager is. The good news is we'll be the big dogs again, we'll be in a stronger financial position than last relegation with a smaller wage bill and less PSR drama. So we'll be an attractive prospect for one of the best Championship level managers and we'll probably be able to pull off another round of Winks and Fatawus, getting in players too good for that level. 

 

Obviously limping to survival would be better, of course it would, but I think if we'd done it by shackling ourselves to more deadweight losers for the next three to five years, we'd have been setting ourselves up to stay in that cycle of doom for the next half decade, doing an Everton, permanently circling the drain. 

 

I'd rather not, personally. 

 

Doesn't mean I'm letting the ownership off the hook but it does mean I'm not wildly unhappy with not spending and I am just accepting we're going down and coming to terms with it. 

 

I like when you bring a sense of calm to the place

 

[StanSP]

10 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Okay so hopefully someone can fill me in here, but there is a lot of chatter from many suggesting the EFL are desperate to hammer us with points deductions and massive fines, consigning us to years the championship, I’ve been caught up in this too, but can someone explain how? 
 

What basis do the EFL have to hit us with? We were down there for a single season, we will be receiving parachute payments and are likely to sell atleast 100m in player sales again, our wages will be less than half what they were in 22/23, what would the grounds be for a deduction for example, I’m not trying to argue it won’t happen I’m genuinely just oblivious to what grounds this deduction would be based on. 

I thought parachute payments are only received if you don't go back up straight away. 

[CUJimmy]

Not sure what my answer to the question would be but looking at our player contract situation our financial position isn’t improving anytime soon.

 

At the end of this season the only players out of contract will be Ward, Iverson and Vardy.  Of the rest a limited number are going to attract any interest, Mads will go to Chelsea, BEK will attract interest from a top half club and a few of the others might get picked up by lower prem teams but for very small fees.  Fatawu might get a decent move depending on who will risk it after his injury - it will be at a cut price though.

 

Of those that are left most can do a job in the Championship but even if we got promoted (long shot I know) we will likely be in the same position as we are now in two years.

 

We either had to go ‘balls out’ and spend big on the kind of players that would keep us up or do what we obviously have done, accept relegation and begin to repair the finances.  I really don’t think there were enough players around at the kind of money we could pay and stay within PSR.  Ignoring PSR, even if we did stay up, only kicks the can down the road until next season because we still have loads of players on big 2/3 year contracts who wouldn’t be going anywhere.

 

One thing for sure is that there isn’t a quick solution.  Even a change of owner wouldn’t instantly fix the situation with players contracts or walking the tightrope of PSR so it’s going to take 3 years minimum.

[CUJimmy]

26 minutes ago, shiv said:

If we’re realistic, his most likely destination is Chelsea and we managed to do a deal in time with KDH. 

True but Chelsea, or anyone else, would know that we needed to sell quickly so we would end up accepting a lower price than we could have got by holding out longer.  

[Finnegan]

Also, a better question would be:

 

Do you trust the combination of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Martyn Glover and Jon Rudkin to keep us up if Top took a large gamble and got the cheque book out? 

 

Not just this year, but again next year with -6 or so points? 

 

With millions of next year and the next year and the next year's budget then spent in amortisation? 

 

Edited 4 February by Finnegan

[Tommy G]

29 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Nobody in here is qualified to answer that question, especially not while emotions are running high. You'd need actual access to our books and a professional level of understanding of the rules and the nuances of how they're implemented. Even the Kieran Maguires of this world are only making educated guesses until they see our returns. 

 

What I would say is that amortisation is a trap that leads to the death spiral we're currently in and too many of us, myself included, end up erroneously thinking "yeah it'll be fine to spend twenty million because we just sold Tom Cannon for a few million profit!" 

 

That's obviously not healthy and obviously not sustainable, especially when you're rushing to make bad choices and recruit sub optimal players in this constant papering over the cracks. 

 

I know I'm in the minority but I'm quietly relieved Woyo was our only nonsense panic buy of the window. It's bad enough we're stuck with Skipp for the next four years, clogging up our amortisation and wage bill. 

 

We'll be in a strong spending position in the summer. I think people, again including myself, have been a tiny bit melodramatic about what's waiting for us in the EFL. We're not definitely going to get shafted, we made a lot of money selling players in the last year. The EFL might be a bit mad at us but they only tried to embargo us because they wanted to know our plans and we said stay out of it it's nothing to do with you, haha. Not because we'd actually done anything wrong at that point. 

 

Yes, Rudkin will still be here, we won't really have learned that lesson. So we're going to be reliant on who the manager is. The good news is we'll be the big dogs again, we'll be in a stronger financial position than last relegation with a smaller wage bill and less PSR drama. So we'll be an attractive prospect for one of the best Championship level managers and we'll probably be able to pull off another round of Winks and Fatawus, getting in players too good for that level. 

 

Obviously limping to survival would be better, of course it would, but I think if we'd done it by shackling ourselves to more deadweight losers for the next three to five years, we'd have been setting ourselves up to stay in that cycle of doom for the next half decade, doing an Everton, permanently circling the drain. 

 

I'd rather not, personally. 

 

Doesn't mean I'm letting the ownership off the hook but it does mean I'm not wildly unhappy with not spending and I am just accepting we're going down and coming to terms with it. 

 

But but but we're going to get a transfer EmBaRgO

[ClaphamFox]

34 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Nobody in here is qualified to answer that question, especially not while emotions are running high. You'd need actual access to our books and a professional level of understanding of the rules and the nuances of how they're implemented. Even the Kieran Maguires of this world are only making educated guesses until they see our returns. 

 

What I would say is that amortisation is a trap that leads to the death spiral we're currently in and too many of us, myself included, end up erroneously thinking "yeah it'll be fine to spend twenty million because we just sold Tom Cannon for a few million profit!" 

 

That's obviously not healthy and obviously not sustainable, especially when you're rushing to make bad choices and recruit sub optimal players in this constant papering over the cracks. 

 

I know I'm in the minority but I'm quietly relieved Woyo was our only nonsense panic buy of the window. It's bad enough we're stuck with Skipp for the next four years, clogging up our amortisation and wage bill. 

 

We'll be in a strong spending position in the summer. I think people, again including myself, have been a tiny bit melodramatic about what's waiting for us in the EFL. We're not definitely going to get shafted, we made a lot of money selling players in the last year. The EFL might be a bit mad at us but they only tried to embargo us because they wanted to know our plans and we said stay out of it it's nothing to do with you, haha. Not because we'd actually done anything wrong at that point. 

 

Yes, Rudkin will still be here, we won't really have learned that lesson. So we're going to be reliant on who the manager is. The good news is we'll be the big dogs again, we'll be in a stronger financial position than last relegation with a smaller wage bill and less PSR drama. So we'll be an attractive prospect for one of the best Championship level managers and we'll probably be able to pull off another round of Winks and Fatawus, getting in players too good for that level. 

 

Obviously limping to survival would be better, of course it would, but I think if we'd done it by shackling ourselves to more deadweight losers for the next three to five years, we'd have been setting ourselves up to stay in that cycle of doom for the next half decade, doing an Everton, permanently circling the drain. 

 

I'd rather not, personally. 

 

Doesn't mean I'm letting the ownership off the hook but it does mean I'm not wildly unhappy with not spending and I am just accepting we're going down and coming to terms with it. 

 

Sensible post. The hysteria over what the EFL will supposedly do to us when we go down has gotten way out of hand. The ONE thing that the club has been good at over the past few years is understanding and working around the PSR rules. In fact, our lawyers have proven that that understand the PL's rules better than the PL does. So it's very likely that the club has already looked at the situation re: the EFL and PSR and concluded that they won't be able to touch us. If the club believed the EFL WOULD be able to hit us hard over 2020-23 when we go down, surely it would have spent heavily over the past month to avoid relegation? It wouldn't make any sense to hold back on spending in that scenario.

 

23 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Okay so hopefully someone can fill me in here, but there is a lot of chatter from many suggesting the EFL are desperate to hammer us with points deductions and massive fines, consigning us to years the championship, I’ve been caught up in this too, but can someone explain how? 
 

What basis do the EFL have to hit us with? We were down there for a single season, we will be receiving parachute payments and are likely to sell atleast 100m in player sales again, our wages will be less than half what they were in 22/23, what would the grounds be for a deduction for example, I’m not trying to argue it won’t happen I’m genuinely just oblivious to what grounds this deduction would be based on. 

Good question, Lee. The answer is that there are zero grounds for a transfer embargo and probably very few grounds for a points deduction. However there are some who find this hard to believe and insist on repeating the 'The EFL is gonna get us' line without ever bothering to explain how.

Edited 4 February by ClaphamFox

[richardsfoxes]

What annoys me the most is even after being this shit we're still only 2-3 points off safety which is utter madness, imagine if we had just signed a couple more players who would actually improve the starting 11 the lift it would of given everyone but then I think of the fact we're in this PSR mess and have been for 3-4 years and they STILL spend 40-50m on players who are literally sitting on the bench everygame, we deserve everything we get and unfortnately its us fans who suffer. 

[Mickyblueeyes]

2 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Also, a better question would be:

 

Do you trust the combination of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Martyn Glover and Jon Rudkin to keep us up if Top took a large gamble and got the cheque book out? 

 

Not just this year, but again next year with -6 or so points? 

 

With millions of next year and the next year and the next year's budget then spent in amortisation? 

 

Fair point, well made.

[Vlad the Fox]

13 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Okay so hopefully someone can fill me in here, but there is a lot of chatter from many suggesting the EFL are desperate to hammer us with points deductions and massive fines, consigning us to years the championship, I’ve been caught up in this too, but can someone explain how? 
 

What basis do the EFL have to hit us with? We were down there for a single season, we will be receiving parachute payments and are likely to sell atleast 100m in player sales again, our wages will be less than half what they were in 22/23, what would the grounds be for a deduction for example, I’m not trying to argue it won’t happen I’m genuinely just oblivious to what grounds this deduction would be based on. 

There’s no basis. We didn’t breach psr for the last three years including the year we were in the champ so they can’t touch us there. And the prem are in arbitration regarding the other case were we played by their own rules as written, they can’t take action while the prem are looking into it, if the prem drop the case the efl might try to take it up but it would be on very shaky ground and would be subject to another legal challenge from us I’d assume. If we go down I suspect nothing happens. 

[ClaphamFox]

1 minute ago, Vlad the Fox said:

There’s no basis. We didn’t breach psr for the last three years including the year we were in the champ so they can’t touch us there. And the prem are in arbitration regarding the other case were we played by their own rules as written, they can’t take action while the prem are looking into it, if the prem drop the case the efl might try to take it up but it would be on very shaky ground and would be subject to another legal challenge from us I’d assume. If we go down I suspect nothing happens. 

This is by far the most likely scenario.

[dmayne7]

2 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Also, a better question would be:

 

Do you trust the combination of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Martyn Glover and Jon Rudkin to keep us up if Top took a large gamble and got the cheque book out? 

 

Not just this year, but again next year with -6 or so points? 

 

With millions of next year and the next year and the next year's budget then spent in amortisation? 

 

Why does it have to be a massive spend though of players we're lumbered with for years? It's possible to show some intent and try and get players in on loan or at least gamble on a few cheaper players in the hope they can make an impact. Choosing to do absolutely nothing was not the answer.

 

The other thing to factor in is that is staying in the PL (even with some points deduction) vs going down has a huge reputational impact. We're now a bigger club than lots of people give us credit for and whilst scraping survival would not have got us back to that title of 'best of the rest', staying up definitely means plenty of players look at Leicester' relegation as a blip and think that we're a proper PL club. Going down again will completely eradicate that as the perception is now just of us as a yo-yo club. 

[TonyN11]

Yeah, unfortunately don't think those options were mutually exclusive 😕 

[jammie82uk]

28 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

The good news is we'll be the big dogs again, we'll be in a stronger financial position than last relegation with a smaller wage bill and less PSR drama. So we'll be an attractive prospect for one of the best Championship level managers and we'll probably be able to pull off another round of Winks and Fatawus, getting in players too good for that level. 

I’m sure Luton fans would have had a similar opinion about being the “big dogs” in the championship and look where that has currently got them, we can’t be complacent about it as that’s why we are currently in the situation we are in today