NFR Forest

[H4usuallysitting]

Fulham have been deducted 3 points for winning on Saturday

[Chi_FFC]

Was there an explanation why Forest got 4 and Everton have gotten 6?

Sounds like they were given a 3 point deduction for breaking the rules in the first place, another 3 point deduction for the extent to which they broke the rules and then that penalty was reduced by two for the following mitigating reasons 1) "Forest admitted the Complaint in full at the first opportunity, and (2) has cooperated extensively with the Premier League before and during the disciplinary process."

So while Forest argued that the delay of the Johnson sale should be considered as a mitigating factor, the PL chose not to treat it as such.

[Ludlow Richard]

They have two weeks to appeal this and then that appeal won't be decided upon until 24th May.  The Premier League season finishes on the 9th May so Christ knows how that is going to work.

Season finishes 19th May. If the appeal result is known 24th May, then that is only 5 days after the end of the season. Not great but far from disastrous either......

[wback]

Four point is definitely a risk worth taking I'd say? If we had overspent and had 1-2 more top quality players in the squad, we might well have 10 points more than we have now, in which case even a deduction would see is still in the running for Europe.

Maybe all clubs should do it, and all start the season on minus 4?

[Free Elvis Hammond]

In a way I think it's quite unfair. They'd have been within the limits if they sold Brennan Johnson earlier, but they hung on and got nearly £20m more for him. I don't think financial sustainability rules should be forcing clubs to make less money

On the other hand, they did buy about a thousand players, and have some dodgy dealings with the owner's other clubs, so I don't have that much sympathy

[Thames Bank 1]

What about Chelsea ?

[Fulham Tup North]

They have two weeks to appeal this and then that appeal won't be decided upon until 24th May.  The Premier League season finishes on the 9th May so Christ knows how that is going to work.

The season finishes on 19th May, but the actual season ends 1st June!
That is when the relegated sides must hand back their EPL membership cards.
I wonder if they turn up and the person at the EPL says "sorry, I've been told to cut this up in front of you" and bring out the big scissors and snip their card into little pieces?
 
COYW

[RaySmith]

All seems very unfair to smaller clubs.

[filham]

They have two weeks to appeal this and then that appeal won't be decided upon until 24th May.  The Premier League season finishes on the 9th May so Christ knows how that is going to work.

Exactly, how crazy is that?

That really is stupid, we all want to know how this relegation battle is panning out week by week.
Forrest have been throwing money about wildly since their promotion,why has it taken for officials to act.

[Sgt Fulham]

Was there an explanation why Forest got 4 and Everton have gotten 6?

Most likely, because Forest argued that the reason they were in breach was because they delayed the sale of Brenan Johnson until later in the summer transfer window so that they would achieve a higher sale price, but that fee was only counted in the following PSR year as a result.

I've always found that defence (i.e delaying Johnson sale knowing it put them in jeopardy) bizarre. You can't, as a club, to break the rules claiming it was better for them to sell him outside the FFP deadline...weird

I agree its absolutely laughable; they've either sold him by the relevant date or not - there's no grey area.

Of course there are infinite shades of grey.

Real life isn't black and white so neither should the law that governs it be rigid or binary.

If you get done for dangerous driving having gone 5 mph over the speed limit at 1am and hit a cyclist who had no lights on, you wouldn't expect the same sentence as someone who's ploughed into a crowd of kids whilst high and doing 70mph outside a school at 3pm.

And to the post above that we should ignore FFP if the sanction is only 4pts, well if we just drove a coach and horses through the rules I expect we'd quite rightly get a much bigger sanction.

Fair point, but I would argue that a breach of £34.5m can be considered driving a coach and horses through it already.

[Baszab]

Helps Brentford though - they look like they could lose every game to the end of the season and still stay up

[Somerset Fulham]

They have two weeks to appeal this and then that appeal won't be decided upon until 24th May.  The Premier League season finishes on the 9th May so Christ knows how that is going to work.

The season finishes on 19th May, but the actual season ends 1st June!
That is when the relegated sides must hand back their EPL membership cards.
I wonder if they turn up and the person at the EPL says "sorry, I've been told to cut this up in front of you" and bring out the big scissors and snip their card into little pieces?
 
COYW

I didn't know that I must admit. It makes the whole scenario even more insane though.

It is my guess they hope that Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United get relegated and that will avoid any difficult situations.

[Angus Telford]

Interesting breakdown of the reasoning here for those with the inclination to read it...

https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2024/03/18/6614f2f9-6138-4d13-81c9-671130427c1c/Final-Award-The-Premier-League-and-Nottingham-Forest-745330876.1-.pdf 

Essentially they were given a 3 point sanction which is the starting point for any "significant" breach, then 3 more points were added to the sanction given the large scale of the breach, then 2 points were deducted on account of them admitting the breach early doors and cooperation fully with the PL investigation, bringing the final sanction to 4 pts.

I think they'll struggle to get this reduced on appeal because it already takes into account various lessons learned from the Everton appeal.

[Somerset Fulham]

They have two weeks to appeal this and then that appeal won't be decided upon until 24th May.  The Premier League season finishes on the 9th May so Christ knows how that is going to work.

I imagine they will retain their place in the Premier and start next season on -4

Will probably mean that whichever teams get relegated, will be on to their lawyers straight away! And I think they would be right too!

Really is a mess. They'd probably throw the book at FFC if we were in breach!

Its already been deducted from them, but God knows what happens if they appeal is successful and they stay up as a result of it. Its going to be bedlam.

[St Eve]

Was there an explanation why Forest got 4 and Everton have gotten 6?

Most likely, because Forest argued that the reason they were in breach was because they delayed the sale of Brenan Johnson until later in the summer transfer window so that they would achieve a higher sale price, but that fee was only counted in the following PSR year as a result.

That is absolute nonsense. That was a business decision. On that basis they should have waited a couple more years and got a better transfer fee.

[St Eve]

In a way I think it's quite unfair. They'd have been within the limits if they sold Brennan Johnson earlier, but they hung on and got nearly £20m more for him. I don't think financial sustainability rules should be forcing clubs to make less money

On the other hand, they did buy about a thousand players, and have some dodgy dealings with the  owner's other clubs, so I don't have that much sympathy

Not unfair at all. They cheated. Had they sold Johnson and some other players earlier, and had they not bought so many players they would not have cheated.

[HV71]

Complete nonsense at so many levels.
This is getting a bit like VAR - you don't know whether you have scored or not until some individual decides from miles away and takes forever . We could face fans not knowing ,after the last game of the season, whether they are saying up or going down. How can that be ? WTF is happening to the game ? What are fans to think or do in this day and age ? This is a step too far and I can only hope that any appeal has no impact on the relegation battle.

[SG]

They knew the rules but continued to spend spend spend. We were all saying the same- how can they afford it. And now it transpires they couldn't. So tough sh1t.They cheated and hopefully will go down at the expense of Luton who's recovery story is motivating to all the smaller clubs

[St Eve]

This is a complete fiasco and I feel story for Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United. Forest will appeal and likely get no points deducted and Everton will appeal the second offense and be given points because they tried very hard not to cheat.

[ElRay]

I can't say I've got much sympathy for them. Reckless spending in all 3 windows since getting promoted

They point to the premier league stifling ambition but what they're doing is clearly spending without a plan, simply just trying to buy their way out of trouble every window. I'm not a huge of fan the FFP/PSR rules but without punishing clubs for being idiots Forest will just end up like Portsmouth.