Leicester Pay EFL £3.1m to Settle FFP Dispute

[Stan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43146018

Quote

 

Leicester City will pay the Football League £3.1m after settling a Financial Fair Play (FFP) dispute from the 2013/14 season when the club won the Championship.

The Foxes exceeded the permitted £8m loss when they won promotion.

They posted a loss of £20.8m but said £13m of it was "allowable" as it included promotion and academy costs.

The EFL said that Leicester "did not make any deliberate attempt to infringe the rules or to deceive".

It added: "The dispute arose out of genuine differences of interpretation of the rules between the parties."

Leicester, who won the Premier League in 2015-16, could have faced a fine equivalent to the amount they exceeded the permitted £8m loss, in their case up to £12.8m.

The Foxes had legally challenged the charge of breaching FFP rules, but proceedings were halted pending the outcome of a legal challenge by Queens Park Rangers in May 2015 that is ongoing.

Bournemouth were fined £7.6m for breaching FFP rules in their 2014-15 promotion-winning season.

Sides that breach FFP rulings not promoted to the Premier League can face a ban on transfers.

Championship sides Bolton, Fulham and Nottingham Forest were all placed under a transfer embargo after breaching Football League rules in 2014-15.

 

still find it weird that if you don't get promotion after making a loss you get punished even more. 

[Dan+]

Still sounds a bit iffy to me to be honest and I don't really like the fact you can effectively get away with it like that. Can you argue that we gave ourselves an advantage by doing what we did that season? Because if so then the whole system is a total waste of time as the fine is pretty insignificant to us now.

The worst we did was 2011/12 where we spent a ridiculous amount of money for the time, and the league, and spent it pretty badly as well. Our business in the summer of 2011 was an embarrassment. We spent a bit in 2012/13 as well but nowhere near as much. Strangely it was the year we went up where I think we actually had a negative net spend.

[Marc]

There is no fucking point in fining clubs that break financial rules. Points deductions, stopping teams getting promoted is the only way.

So Leicester took a 3m hit, but gained 100m?

What's the point when most of the league try their hardest to adhere to the rules and the clubs that break them get punishments like a relatively small fine or a transfer embargo for one window. FFP rules have been relaxed now as well. An experiment that didn't work because the rules weren't enforced properly and have loop holes in them like Man City receiving massive amounts from sponsoring their own team and stadium

[Dan+]

On 2/21/2018 at 18:18, Marc said:

There is no fucking point in fining clubs that break financial rules. Points deductions, stopping teams getting promoted is the only way.

So Leicester took a 3m hit, but gained 100m?

What's the point when most of the league try their hardest to adhere to the rules and the clubs that break them get punishments like a relatively small fine or a transfer embargo for one window. FFP rules have been relaxed now as well. An experiment that didn't work because the rules weren't enforced properly and have loop holes in them like Man City receiving massive amounts from sponsoring their own team and stadium

Really?

I'm not defending us entirely here but there's absolutely no way we're the worst offenders.

[Harry]

 So great that Leicester get punished but PSG manage to comply with the rules and avoid any significant reprimands

[Danny]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

 So great that Leicester get punished but PSG manage to comply with the rules and avoid any significant reprimands

Different governing bodies

[Marc]

5 hours ago, Dan said:

Really?

I'm not defending us entirely here but there's absolutely no way we're the worst offenders.

I didn’t say you were the worst offenders.

I said I believe most clubs adhere to FFP which is correct, factually. Only about 5 clubs have been found guilty of breaking FFP laws since it was introduced.

I saw someone on twitter describe itnas robbing a bank and getting a parking ticket, which is pretty accurate.

Did Bournemouth ever get fined or anything? 

[Stan]

7 minutes ago, Marc said:

I didn’t say you were the worst offenders.

I said I believe most clubs adhere to FFP which is correct, factually. Only about 5 clubs have been found guilty of breaking FFP laws since it was introduced.

I saw someone on twitter describe itnas robbing a bank and getting a parking ticket, which is pretty accurate.

Did Bournemouth ever get fined or anything? 

yep they got fined £7-8m after their promotion.

[Smiley Culture]

I’m not saying clubs should be denied promotion or anything like that but really, all you’ve got to do is spend heavily, hope to go up and then pay peanuts from your Premier League TV revenue to the Football League to keep them quiet. 

It really invites danger on some clubs who try to do the above and fail. QPR’s years of mass spending, all on the wrong areas, seems to have caught up with them and I think other clubs will take that risk and some are bound to fail. 

[Stan]

6 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

I’m not saying clubs should be denied promotion or anything like that but really, all you’ve got to do is spend heavily, hope to go up and then pay peanuts from your Premier League TV revenue to the Football League to keep them quiet. 

It really invites danger on some clubs who try to do the above and fail. QPR’s years of mass spending, all on the wrong areas, seems to have caught up with them and I think other clubs will take that risk and some are bound to fail. 

this is what Derby and Forest have done. The latter failing more miserably so. 

[Marc]

I think clubs should be denied promotion. Why shouldn’t they?

It isn’t just that it’s unfair it’s also protecting the future of all of our clubs if  promotion isn’t gained.

God knows how QPR survived, Fernándes must have lost hundreds of millions on that little venture of his. QPRs wage bill when they went down was bigger than Villa’s was last season and that was about 5 years ago.

[Batard]

5 hours ago, Marc said:

I think clubs should be denied promotion. Why shouldn’t they?

It isn’t just that it’s unfair it’s also protecting the future of all of our clubs if  promotion isn’t gained.

God knows how QPR survived, Fernándes must have lost hundreds of millions on that little venture of his. QPRs wage bill when they went down was bigger than Villa’s was last season and that was about 5 years ago.

I disagree, denying the clubs is an extreme reaction to an underlying cause that is poor club ownership. Make the fit and proper owners test actually mean something instead of what I suspect it is, another way for the league to make money from club ownership changing hands.

[Danny]

13 hours ago, Batard said:

I disagree, denying the clubs is an extreme reaction to an underlying cause that is poor club ownership. Make the fit and proper owners test actually mean something instead of what I suspect it is, another way for the league to make money from club ownership changing hands.

Bournemouths owners are fine, Brighton happy with theirs...it's difficult to get out of the league when you have club paying their way out of it beyond FFP. Denying promotion would be class I reckon, then chuck some fines and a point deduction on top and everyone's a winner.

[Honey Honey]

As if this will deter anyone else doing it.

 

[Dan+]

On 2/24/2018 at 08:02, Marc said:

I didn’t say you were the worst offenders.

I said I believe most clubs adhere to FFP which is correct, factually. Only about 5 clubs have been found guilty of breaking FFP laws since it was introduced.

I saw someone on twitter describe itnas robbing a bank and getting a parking ticket, which is pretty accurate.

Did Bournemouth ever get fined or anything? 

I'm amazed it's only 5 clubs. Us and Bournemouth I know have been, QPR have been, so then that means only two of Derby, Forest, Sheff Weds and Wolves have been? Because I'd say they're all more guilty than we are.

I'd have to double check on all of the details, but I'm pretty sure the rules were brought in after we'd done the majority of our spending (2011/12 season) and that we'd failed them before they'd even been implemented. It would explain why we've had to pay a petty settlement rather than have anything significant happen to us.

[Honey Honey]

A fine like this essentially rewards one party (the EFL) who haven't suffered any losses in the first place.

Derby County should perhaps be entitled to about £30m off Leicester if this is to really be fair.

You would soon seen this rule work.

[Marc]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

I'm amazed it's only 5 clubs. Us and Bournemouth I know have been, QPR have been, so then that means only two of Derby, Forest, Sheff Weds and Wolves have been? Because I'd say they're all more guilty than we are.

I'd have to double check on all of the details, but I'm pretty sure the rules were brought in after we'd done the majority of our spending (2011/12 season) and that we'd failed them before they'd even been implemented. It would explain why we've had to pay a petty settlement rather than have anything significant happen to us.

Leicester, Bournemouth, QPR, Blackburn, Nottingham Forest, Leeds are the clubs that have been fined or had a transfer embargo as far as i'm aware. 6 out of probably 50 or so clubs.

 

I don't know how Derby and Wolves have avoided it.

[Dan+]

3 minutes ago, Marc said:

Leicester, Bournemouth, QPR, Blackburn, Nottingham Forest, Leeds are the clubs that have been fined or had a transfer embargo as far as i'm aware. 6 out of probably 50 or so clubs.

 

I don't know how Derby and Wolves have avoided it.

Sheffield Wednesday as well. They've spent more than we did in the Championship.

Absolutely hilarious that it's Derby and Forest fans largely having a pop at us (I'm sure that's co-incidence, it can't possibly be rivalry according to them) when they're turning out stuff like this.

 

 

Funnily enough it was the year we signed Dean Hammond (£100k), Riyad Mahrez (£400k) and Zoumana Bakayoko, Marcin Wasilewski, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Kevin Phillips on frees that we were promoted. We also sold Jermaine Beckford for £500k and Ben Marshall for £1mil, so actually had a negative net spend that season. We are historically better when we spend less. The big fucker for us was wages. Sven shouldn't be allowed to make transfers or contract offers. He's absolutely reckless. Putting players like Neil Danns, Jermaine Beckford, Matt Mills, Paul Gallagher, Richie Wellens etc... all on £20k a week plus in the Championship.

I feel like what we did in 2013/14 makes a lot of the comments people make about us buying our way up laughable to be honest. That was the year we cut back and we just happened to walk the league.

[Stan]

Bradley Johnson signed for £6m  

In the same summer we signed N'Golo Kante for less. 

[Dan+]

9 minutes ago, Stan said:

Bradley Johnson signed for £6m  

In the same summer we signed N'Golo Kante for less. 

Very nearly made that exact comment. Unbelievable how lazy some clubs are with scouting.

[Marc]

To be fair the season before that Johnson got 15-20 goals from centre mid when we got promoted. I was gutted when we sold him, but it was the right decision in hindsight. Every club makes bad signings, you spent 30m on Slimani...

I do have a bee in my bonnet about Leicester going into admin back in the early 2000s, keeping most of your squad and then getting promoted. Not sure how you managed to get away with that.

[Dan+]

38 minutes ago, Marc said:

To be fair the season before that Johnson got 15-20 goals from centre mid when we got promoted. I was gutted when we sold him, but it was the right decision in hindsight. Every club makes bad signings, you spent 30m on Slimani...

I do have a bee in my bonnet about Leicester going into admin back in the early 2000s, keeping most of your squad and then getting promoted. Not sure how you managed to get away with that.

I'm not saying we've been any better recently. Our transfer business since winning the league has been, more often than not, a total embarrassment and I want to see clear signs this summer that it's been addressed. Summer 2016 we went into the transfer window in the strongest position in the clubs history. A year and a half later and every single player brought in that summer has left the club. As much as we'll laud the title win forever, we'll always look back on that summer as where we undid most of the good work.

While I'm not hugely educated on what happened with us going into admin, I do think we're largely at fault in that one.

Derby's transfer policy is appalling. £7mil on Tom Lawrence who was out of contract in a year. We absolutely had them there.

As a side note, I read a pretty long thread a while ago on Twitter that Norwich have taken some serious steps to changing their own transfer policy. What's going on?