by Snowflake Royal »
04 Mar 2024 08:55
Noggin the Nog I haven’t followed much of what’s been posted on HNA about recent points deductions. If my opinions have been covered and I’m clearly wrong then ignore this.
My understanding is that the owner has frequently mismanaged the finances causing problems with the club salaries (players and management) and other parties such as HMRC. So the basic problem concerns providing funds for the various parties. Those funds come from club revenue and owner capital. That seems reasonable.
So as the problem is financial, why is points deduction by the FA considered as a penalty? After all if, at season’s end, Reading were 9th and were deducted 10 points they would not be relegated. But if they were deducted 10 points when they were nearer the bottom at season’s end they would be relegated. Nothing to do with finances. That’s totally wrong. Have appropriate auditors challenged this FA decision? The problem has been financial and the retribution should be likewise. Why should management, players, supporters all suffer due to deducting points?
I welcome responses.
Financial penalties don't do anything to solve the problem.
The FL also no power to enforce financial penalties, as we see with Dai refusing to pay personal fines and deposits of wages. Not only that, but fines are inherently just going to make the financial situation at clubs worse. They usually have no money, so requiring more is not helpful.
Their only real enforceable sanctions are transfer embargos and points deductions. And points deductions are appropriate as a sanction because financial doping is an attempt to gain a sporting advantage. We've been very bad at it, but still we've survived relegation in four of the previous five seasons through overspending (badly) and we currently have a better squad than our income can justify thanks to Dai turning off the money tap.
In a way you're right, but that way requires a huge and fundamental change to how football is run in this country, and arguably globally. That requires at least a change in UK law.
It's often forgotten, but worth remembering. The FL isn’t an independent body that sets and dictates rules. Its an industry representative body made up of the delegates of all of the football clubs who are members of the football league. The clubs literally set their own rules and penalties.