Points Deduction AGAIN

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Looking forward to BBCBerks investigative and revealing report in time for Saturday.

To be fair Tim did allude to this 10 days ago - he felt club were pushing for a certain points target and 50 was too many and wondered if something was incoming.

50 points has always been the generally accepted safety figure, and its the fig Ince has mentioned all season, not just recently. If you set the target lower you stand to fail.

[TiagoIlori]

These journalists that are reporting have been fairly accurate when it comes to Reading and FFP. It is not unreasonable to be concerned at the situation and what it means for the club.

Not really…some of them were saying that we’d get 18 to 21 points deducted 18 months ago. I imagine there are some areas where the EFL want to look more closely, you’d expect that…but the speculation is ridiculous. The deduction could be 0.

Find me one journalist reporting today that said 18-21 as most journalists including John Percy were saying up to 9 back then from what I remember.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

I think people are being naive about this.

The question you need to ask is who would be speaking to journalists about this. And note they are national journalists.

There is no incentive for reading to be the ones to leak this to journalists. As demonstrated by the lack of a response so far.

There is an incentive for the EFL to talk to journalists about this. It shows that they mean business on FFP.

So the idea that the EFL statement should be taken at face value is nonsense. They are letting journalists know that all is not well with reading and they intend to act. They are not going to fly this kite with the media unless they are confident that reading will face a deduction.

Based on how this has played in medi there is no doubt in my mind there will be a points deduction. The only question is how many.

The EFL want their pound of flesh. Won’t be easy for reading to avoid giving it to them.

And if we do stay up the question then becomes how long will this go on…..

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I think people are being naive about this.

The question you need to ask is who would be speaking to journalists about this. And note they are national journalists.

There is no incentive for reading to be the ones to leak this to journalists. As demonstrated by the lack of a response so far.

There is an incentive for the EFL to talk to journalists about this. It shows that they mean business on FFP.

So the idea that the EFL statement should be taken at face value is nonsense. They are letting journalists know that all is not well with reading and they intend to act. They are not going to fly this kite with the media unless they are confident that reading will face a deduction.

Based on how this has played in medi there is no doubt in my mind there will be a points deduction. The only question is how many.

The EFL want their pound of flesh. Won’t be easy for reading to avoid giving it to them.

And if we do stay up the question then becomes how long will this go on…..

Completely agree with this sadly. If there was nothing to say the EFL would have said nothing

[Kitsondinho]

I think people are being naive about this.

The question you need to ask is who would be speaking to journalists about this. And note they are national journalists.

There is no incentive for reading to be the ones to leak this to journalists. As demonstrated by the lack of a response so far.

There is an incentive for the EFL to talk to journalists about this. It shows that they mean business on FFP.

So the idea that the EFL statement should be taken at face value is nonsense. They are letting journalists know that all is not well with reading and they intend to act. They are not going to fly this kite with the media unless they are confident that reading will face a deduction.

Based on how this has played in medi there is no doubt in my mind there will be a points deduction. The only question is how many.

The EFL want their pound of flesh. Won’t be easy for reading to avoid giving it to them.

And if we do stay up the question then becomes how long will this go on…..

Completely agree with this sadly. If there was nothing to say the EFL would have said nothing

The statement came out after the increasing speculation about the size of the points deduction, not before. We shall see how it unfolds. Might we have points deducted? Absolutely. However, the EFL’s statement tonight doesn’t mean we will.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

Just to be crystal clear. People speak off the record to journalists. That doesn’t prevent an on the record statement which says far less. That is what has happened here.

[RG30]

These journalists that are reporting have been fairly accurate when it comes to Reading and FFP. It is not unreasonable to be concerned at the situation and what it means for the club.

Not really…some of them were saying that we’d get 18 to 21 points deducted 18 months ago. I imagine there are some areas where the EFL want to look more closely, you’d expect that…but the speculation is ridiculous. The deduction could be 0.

That never happened. Only way that is possible is if you enter administration.

[Elm Park Kid]

The EFL statement provides zero information other than restating what we already know - that Reading had an obligation to stick to an EFL business plan. They would have released exactly the same statement regardless of whether they had already decided we were guilty/innocent or whether they were genuinely still reviewing the facts.

Football journalism obviously has a poor reputation for printing rumour as fact, and extrapolating a lot based on minimal details. However, there is going to be some kind of source when they report this. They must have an insider providing them with information - someone that they can reasonably trust. As others have said, maybe the EFL are looking to gain a bit of media attention with this leak, maybe they want to prepare Reading fans, maybe it's just one individual who owes a journalist a favour. Maybe the EFL haven't made any final decisions and this person has jumped the gun.

It's obviously not 'nothing' though - there's a now a very strong possibility that we are about to see a points deduction. The crazy thing is that it could be a 12 point and we'd still have a fighting chance of staying up.

[Hound]

Would be quite amusing if they deducted 12 points and then we still stayed up comfortably

[tmesis]

Would be quite amusing if they deducted 12 points and then we still stayed up comfortably

they'll probably wait until they have a better idea if it would send us down or not.

If it looks like we'd stay up, they'll bring it in for next season.


That said, I'm still at a loss as to how we could have broken the conditions, if every signing is ratified by the league first.

I guess they could have found evidence of 'cash in hand' type payments to get round the low salaries (in which cased we'd be utterly screwed) but I think if that had happened, there'd be a lot more noise about it.

[blythspartan]

I don’t want us to get relegated of course but if we end up going down due to a large points deduction in some ways it’ll be a relief. The last few years supporting the club have been challenging to say the least and if it allows us to press the reset button it might be better in the long run.

Hopefully, any deduction won’t be too bad and we’ll stay up but I just want it done and dusted so that we can look forward as a club.

[Getthebeerens]

Surely in January we would have been trying to sell anyone we could if we knew this was about to happen? Instead we added 1 to the squad and it was only the squad size preventing us adding more.

Assume someone in back office at the club has made a massive error.

No smoke without fire and I can only see this cloud lifting once the EFL have relegated us.

I am very disillusioned with football at the moment.

[rabidbee]

How are Genoa getting on? If they're forced to sign Puscas will that count towards this season?

Depends on the level of the agreement breach. If it is something we have already done that we were explicitly told not to do by the EFL it wouldn't matter.

Doubt we could actually do anything the EFL had specifically told us not to, and if we had we would know about it because it would involve large sums of money.
We can’t sign players if the EFL don’t approve them and we can’t pay them more than the EFL sign off on. I really can’t imagine we’d have given Carroll some kind of off the books payment given he was happy here on pretty nominal wages.

Back in the day, ice hockey clubs got around wage caps by 'employing' their top players on large sums as Zamboni drivers. Have we been giving Carroll £20k a week to paint the lines on the grass?

[The Royal Forester]

Stop panicking everyone! The media reports are riddled with If's, maybe's, could etc. In other words they do not know. The EFL statement says that The League is reviewing submissions from Reading FC to determine IF compliance has been achieved. In other words The EFL do not know whether, or not, the agreement has been broken. The EFL is duty bound to look at the books etc. before deciding to either docking us the suspended points or freeing us from the embargo etc.

[Snowflake Royal]

https://www.efl.com/news/2023/march/efl-statement-reading-fc/

In November 2021, the EFL and Reading Football Club reached an Agreed Decision in respect of the Club’s failure to comply with the League’s Profit and Sustainability (P&S) Rules.

As part of the decision, the Club is required to comply with the terms of a Business Plan up until the end of season 2022/23. The plan focuses on a number of financial targets with the objective of improving the Club’s financial performance.

The League is currently reviewing submissions from Reading to determine whether compliance has been achieved.

There will be no further comment on the matter at this time.

Which suggests the process isn’t at at ‘6 point deduction’ yet at all.

Article is always going to focus on the worst possible scenario.

But given the 6 points is suspended, pretty much all but the most trivial or unavoidable for external reasons failure to comply with the business plan is likely to trigger it. With more serious failings likely to trigger it plus a further penalty.

The statement is a bit more interpretable as this is routine confirmation the plan has been followed, but also doesn't dismiss that there may be reasons to believe the plan hasn't been met.

[Snowflake Royal]

I wonder what the EFL will invent next season to try and relegate us.

This is absolutely a conspiracy and not at all the consequences of being badly run and massively overspending for a decade. And doing it so badly it didn’t actually make us perform well.

Certainly don’t disagree with this but not convinced the likes of Stoke or Bristol city haven’t done just as much wrong. Problem with it all being so ‘grey’

And obvs the cheats who avoid sanction due to getting promoted - Bournemouth, Vill, Wolves etc is infuriating

I think you have to factor in that Bristol and Stoke would have been doing it for far less time. Stoke got relegated in 2018. Three or four years of parachute payments to inflate their income and protect that high spending, then the extended Covid period would possibly have helped them, where it just brought a big loss back into the picture for us.

Whereas we've been oxf*rd up our finances in the Championship since 2013.

I don't know much about their transfers, but we almost avoided every opportunity to sell a player for big money to balance the books.

[Snowflake Royal]

OK, EFL statement brings some clarity then.

They are reviewing our submissions as would always have happened. This review will dictate if the club get deducted more points or not, as would always have happened.

So think we can all calm down a bit until the review is complete and we are actually charged or found to be in breach.

That is, unsurprisingly, about the most positive take anyone could bring to this. And ignores that the scrutiny could be well beyond routine.

[Stranded]

There is no story in "EFL follows due process, club may be sanctioned further if found to be in breach".

EFL may have briefed that there is a risk but they need to review. You could actually make a case for the club briefing it, just in case.

Proof will be in the pudding but as long as any negative outcome is fully explained, I'll just want to move on. Bored of it all now.

[Stranded]

OK, EFL statement brings some clarity then.

They are reviewing our submissions as would always have happened. This review will dictate if the club get deducted more points or not, as would always have happened.

So think we can all calm down a bit until the review is complete and we are actually charged or found to be in breach.

That is, unsurprisingly, about the most positive take anyone could bring to this. And ignores that the scrutiny could be well beyond routine.

It is neither positive or negative, just a statement of all we know. EFL have said they are reviewing. End.

It had to happen and it may well end up with us getting a deduction, it may not. Out of my control, so not going to stress about it.

[Snowflake Royal]

OK, EFL statement brings some clarity then.

They are reviewing our submissions as would always have happened. This review will dictate if the club get deducted more points or not, as would always have happened.

So think we can all calm down a bit until the review is complete and we are actually charged or found to be in breach.

That is, unsurprisingly, about the most positive take anyone could bring to this. And ignores that the scrutiny could be well beyond routine.

It is neither positive or negative, just a statement of all we know. EFL have said they are reviewing. End.

It had to happen and it may well end up with us getting a deduction, it may not. Out of my control, so not going to stress about it.

Didn't say you had to stress about it. But your 'as would always have happened' puts a very clear 'nothing to see here' take as if there's a degree of certainty this is routine. That the journalist scoops are made up based purely on a bet we'll have failed to meet the plan and they'll come out looking in the know, like some kid on twitter. When in fact these are credible journalists with genuine sources, and the current review by the FL may be much more than just a routine that 'would always have happened'.

Just because you don't want to worry about it, doesn't mean that there's nothing more to it than routine.