In a further example of the chaos engulfing English football over so-called “Financial Fair Play” rules Leicester City have commenced legal proceedings against the Premier League and English Football League in response to being charged with allegedly breaking spending rules.
The Foxes claim they were “compelled” to act after being charged with breaching profit and sustainability rules (PSR). If found guilty, the Foxes could face a points deduction, although it appears that any such deduction may not be applied until next season therefore avoiding an effect on the current Championship promotion race, one of the tightest and most exciting in years. The EFL have also been placed Leicester under a transfer embargo.
Leicester have raised concerns over the propriety of the process and are seeking to ensure that the proceedings are overseen “by an appropriate and fully independent legal panel”.
The Foxes added: “The club is committed to ensure that any charges against it are properly and proportionately determined, in accordance with the applicable rules, by the right bodies, and at the right time,” the statement said.
“While LCFC would prefer the proceedings to be in public, so its supporters and the wider world can be informed about the important issues of football governance that will be considered, the relevant rules require that these proceedings are conducted confidentially, and LCFC will therefore not be able to comment further about them at this stage.
“We reaffirm the club’s position that we will continue to fight for the right of Leicester City and all clubs to pursue their ambitions, particularly where these have been reasonably and fairly established through sustained sporting achievement.”
That the process is opaque and obscure to most football fans is plain for all to see in the continuing, and much commented on, absence of any publicly available information of how potential proceedings against Manchester City are placed, whereas other clubs seem to have action taken against them more readily. To put it bluntly, we have no idea what is going on and are sympathetic therefore to Leicester’s concerns.
As we argued in an earlier article, football’s Financial Fair Play rules risk destroying the appeal and the future prospects of the professional game in this country. As we said then: “The effect is pretty obvious. It is to reduce the competitiveness, and thereby the interest for fans, in the Premier League. It is a result of trading off competitiveness for stability. By limiting the ability of owners to invest in their clubs to make them better you make it harder for up-and-coming teams ever to challenge the current top-tier clubs.”
We can only repeat our rallying call for “Football fans of the world unite and rise up – we need to get rid of this nonsense.”
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