Points Deduction

This statement from the report is just plain stupid isn't it?

"
The commission concluded that it couldn't treat #NFFC any different to Fulham & Bournemouth (who came up with parachute payments) as there was "no evidence to show that Parachute Payments had been used to enable those clubs to invest"

I must’ve imagined Bournemouth’s January trolley dash then.

They weren't in the Prem then so it didn't happen!

The point they are making is the evidence before the commission (I.e. that we and the Premier league put before it) was that Fulham and Bournemouth used the parachute payments to absorb their losses when they went down rather than to splurge again when they went up.

Which still means they were able to keep most of the premier league squads they already had intact. Which goes to our point. The commission noted that we were the 13th team to be promoted without parachute payments in the last 10 years but I’m not sure how many of them actually managed to stay up -Brentford and Brighton will be two…

But Trickys point is spot on surely. The losses they are absorbing are becauae they invested in better more expensive players already. Which gives them a sporting advantage.

Or put another way, without parachute payments clubs would invest less on players for fear of relegation meaning instant breach of FFp rules.

I think what they are saying is the Bournemouth/ Fulham evidence is:

• parachute payments were spent on losses in the season they were in the championship
• having consolidated those losses they were in an equivalent position to Forest on promotion (as Forest did not have those liabilities and so the fact they did not have parachute payments cancelled put any relative advantage or to put it another way F and B being in the Premier league was a financial disadvantage that parachute payments merely cancelled out)
• they acknowledge that F and B had stronger playing squads but in itself that isn't a matter which bears on the decision of Forest to breach rules applicable to all three teams (and all the other teams) at the start of the new PL competition
• all that matters for those purposes is whether a team breaks the rules, F and B didn't and Forest did

I haven't got my head entirely around that but it reads like a very thorough and balanced judgment all in all, and I am pretty confident we won't bother trying to appeal it because we probably won't get anywhere if we do. The statement we have put out is consistent with that, I'd expect if we were going to appeal we would have said so in the statement. The Premier league also didn't get what they were asking for here, and there may be a chance that an appeal could make things worse rather than better as they may seek to relitigate points they have failed on.

I suspect De Marco may be trying to talk clients out of appealing, put it that way.

Interesting that we sold Scarpa for £5M and that clearly our transfer strategy post this was deliberately more Conservative so we could hold that up as a mitigant.

Having read all three judgements, what runs through all of them is a straightforward dismissal of any attempt at mitigation that tries to claim the rules are unfair. All three commissions have basically gone “rules is rules, shut up whinging about them”. That does suggest Everton could get another six.

I think so and that's understandable - they are there to apply the rules not rewrite them. This is why they can't do anything about the point about Fulham and Bournemouth having stronger squads even if they are sympathetic to that: unless there's evidence before them that the parachute payments were used to fund spending in the season I question rather than losses the season before (which they say there was it evidence of), they can't take account of that.

However this judgment suggests our infringement is worse than Everton's in this time period, so adjusting down but then adding a bit of aggravating back for recidivism on their part I suspect they may also end up with 4.

Does it refer to Everton in this time period?

I thought it was the previous one being referred to?

But I'd also think 4 points otherwise the world may come off it's axis with the high pitched whining coming from Scouseland.

Yes you're right - para 14.15 - our breach is bigger than Everton's first breach. I thought their second breach was smaller than their first though, but could be wrong.

Not been revealed yet.

My overall take is De Marco has basically done pretty well on mitigation which is all we were arguin about. It was never going to be mitigated down to zero and there's not a lot of daylight between 4 and zero. What's the realistic best we could have hoped for? If you look at how they calculate the sanction, I think it's really hard to see us going to an appeal and them saying it should be 2 or 3 rather than 4. They've also had the benefit of and applied the appeal tribunal's reasoning in Everton first instance.

I think it's actually quite a few.

Us. Brentford. Leeds. Sheff Utd. Wolves. Brighton. Huddersfield. Bournemouth. Watford. Leicester.