05-12-2019, 07:49
(This post was last modified: 05-12-2019, 07:53 by St Charles Owl.)
I’m here Beefy, just been busy traveling all the time with work.
This is an interesting case that as far as we are concerned will probably end with us being made an example of by the EFL. There was nothing illegal or against any EFL rules with regards to us selling our ground to a separate company and including the revenue for that sale against our accumulated debt ceiling imposed by the EFL P&S rules. Likewise, Derby, Villa and Reading all did the same for the same reason and again no rules were broken. The problem for us seems to be the reporting and timing of the sale in relation to our published accounts and the season this revenue was posted against, that is what is being investigated, its not the sale of the ground that is being investigated.
The feeling amongst our fans is that we will likely get a points deduction of some sort, ranging from 9 points to 21 points, with 12 points being the most popular guess. We are assuming this deduction will be applied to this season but that remains to be seen. At the moment its just an investigation into the ownership and the accounts that we submitted to the EFL, but I think we all know where that will end up. The club today responded to these allegations with the following statement:
Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has today filed its response to the charges brought against it by the English Football League for alleged misconduct concerning the sale and leaseback of Hillsborough stadium and the inclusion of the profit on that sale in the Club’s 2017/18 accounts. The Club has informed the EFL that the charges are themselves unlawful and, without prejudice to that fact, are all denied by the Club and the other Respondents.
The Club has reserved all of its rights against the EFL and will take all such actions as are necessary to protect its rights and integrity, and those of its current and former officers, including in relation to inaccurate reporting. The Club has also notified the EFL that it stands ready to bring a claim against the EFL to obtain compensation for its conduct.
The Club maintains that it consulted with the relevant executive officers of the EFL in connection with the stadium transaction and that it acted in good faith. The Club has in its possession numerous emails, letters and other documents in which the EFL gave authorisation to the transaction, and on which authorisation the Club understood it could rely. That authorisation gave rise in law to a legitimate expectation that the transaction would be accepted by the EFL, which is binding on the EFL. The EFL is acting in breach of that binding legitimate expectation by retrospectively treating as misconduct that which it had itself previously authorised, and this makes the charges themselves unlawful. The Club is accordingly bringing its own claim against the EFL to establish that it is acting unlawfully, as well as standing ready, if necessary, to vigorously defend the charges.
The Club will make no further comment at this time.
This seems a strong statement by the club, especially if the existence of evidence that what we did was authorized or approved by the EFL. I worry about the language of some of it where we are essentially threatening the EFL with legal action against them, can’t see that playing out very well but I see no alternative for the club if that evidence they have holds true. The whole EFL P&S rules are a joke in reality though, clubs like us are desperately trying to compete with clubs who are on massive parachute payments from the PL and as in our case we have an owner who is prepared to put money into the club to try to bring success, but the rules prevent him from doing so!! How are clubs supposed to compete with a relegated team who get given so much money over three years?? WBA have received parachute payments of 75.5m over the past two years on top of their normal revenue from gate receipts and commercial activity, our annual revenue total is 24m and we have one of the highest gate receipt totals in the Championship, so the only way we can compete is for our owner to pump money into the club to help us. Yet with only 39m losses allowed over a rolling three years, we still can’t get anywhere near the revenue you can, essentially we cap out at 37m per season, still 9m less than your parachute payment on its own for last season. There is simply no parity of any sort in the EFL Championship due to these payments and the only option we have to balance the books and give us a chance to compete was to sell the ground despite having an owner with hundreds of millions and prepared to spend it.
As I said, we have no doubt the EFL will hammer us, its what they do despite evidence anyway, its a closed shop at the end of the day and they operate above the law on things like this. Promotion is our only way out of it, just like it was for QPR, Leicester, Bournemouth, Wolves and Villa, but if we spend to get promoted and do not achieve it then we will just be further in the shit!! Besides, if we were to achieve promotion, then I am sure the points deduction will reflect the number of points we are above 7th place anyway!!!
This is an interesting case that as far as we are concerned will probably end with us being made an example of by the EFL. There was nothing illegal or against any EFL rules with regards to us selling our ground to a separate company and including the revenue for that sale against our accumulated debt ceiling imposed by the EFL P&S rules. Likewise, Derby, Villa and Reading all did the same for the same reason and again no rules were broken. The problem for us seems to be the reporting and timing of the sale in relation to our published accounts and the season this revenue was posted against, that is what is being investigated, its not the sale of the ground that is being investigated.
The feeling amongst our fans is that we will likely get a points deduction of some sort, ranging from 9 points to 21 points, with 12 points being the most popular guess. We are assuming this deduction will be applied to this season but that remains to be seen. At the moment its just an investigation into the ownership and the accounts that we submitted to the EFL, but I think we all know where that will end up. The club today responded to these allegations with the following statement:
Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has today filed its response to the charges brought against it by the English Football League for alleged misconduct concerning the sale and leaseback of Hillsborough stadium and the inclusion of the profit on that sale in the Club’s 2017/18 accounts. The Club has informed the EFL that the charges are themselves unlawful and, without prejudice to that fact, are all denied by the Club and the other Respondents.
The Club has reserved all of its rights against the EFL and will take all such actions as are necessary to protect its rights and integrity, and those of its current and former officers, including in relation to inaccurate reporting. The Club has also notified the EFL that it stands ready to bring a claim against the EFL to obtain compensation for its conduct.
The Club maintains that it consulted with the relevant executive officers of the EFL in connection with the stadium transaction and that it acted in good faith. The Club has in its possession numerous emails, letters and other documents in which the EFL gave authorisation to the transaction, and on which authorisation the Club understood it could rely. That authorisation gave rise in law to a legitimate expectation that the transaction would be accepted by the EFL, which is binding on the EFL. The EFL is acting in breach of that binding legitimate expectation by retrospectively treating as misconduct that which it had itself previously authorised, and this makes the charges themselves unlawful. The Club is accordingly bringing its own claim against the EFL to establish that it is acting unlawfully, as well as standing ready, if necessary, to vigorously defend the charges.
The Club will make no further comment at this time.
This seems a strong statement by the club, especially if the existence of evidence that what we did was authorized or approved by the EFL. I worry about the language of some of it where we are essentially threatening the EFL with legal action against them, can’t see that playing out very well but I see no alternative for the club if that evidence they have holds true. The whole EFL P&S rules are a joke in reality though, clubs like us are desperately trying to compete with clubs who are on massive parachute payments from the PL and as in our case we have an owner who is prepared to put money into the club to try to bring success, but the rules prevent him from doing so!! How are clubs supposed to compete with a relegated team who get given so much money over three years?? WBA have received parachute payments of 75.5m over the past two years on top of their normal revenue from gate receipts and commercial activity, our annual revenue total is 24m and we have one of the highest gate receipt totals in the Championship, so the only way we can compete is for our owner to pump money into the club to help us. Yet with only 39m losses allowed over a rolling three years, we still can’t get anywhere near the revenue you can, essentially we cap out at 37m per season, still 9m less than your parachute payment on its own for last season. There is simply no parity of any sort in the EFL Championship due to these payments and the only option we have to balance the books and give us a chance to compete was to sell the ground despite having an owner with hundreds of millions and prepared to spend it.
As I said, we have no doubt the EFL will hammer us, its what they do despite evidence anyway, its a closed shop at the end of the day and they operate above the law on things like this. Promotion is our only way out of it, just like it was for QPR, Leicester, Bournemouth, Wolves and Villa, but if we spend to get promoted and do not achieve it then we will just be further in the shit!! Besides, if we were to achieve promotion, then I am sure the points deduction will reflect the number of points we are above 7th place anyway!!!