Nottingham Forest fail to get four-point deduction overturned
The decision to deduct four points from Nottingham Forest following an admitted breach of the Premier League’s rules has been upheld by an independent appeal board.
File pic: PA
The club was docked the points in March after an independent commission ruled it had breached the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).
Forest had exceeded their permitted losses by £34.5m in the assessment period ending with the 2022-23 season, the commission decided.
At the time, the deduction put the team, in its second season in England’s top division, in the relegation zone.
They quickly said they would appeal, but the appeal board has upheld the original penalty.
It means Forest remain on 29 points, sitting three points and one place above the bottom three, with two Premier League matches left to play.
Forest had sought a reduction because they felt the original commission should have taken the £47.5m sale of Brennan Johnson to Tottenham – two months after the end of the financial year ending 2023 – into account as a mitigating factor.
They also felt the original commission had made a mistake by not wholly or partially suspending the sanction.
The Premier League said in a statement on its website: “The club argued that the independent commission committed an error in not treating its sale of a high-profile player shortly after the assessment period as a mitigating factor, and that it committed a further error in electing not to suspend some or all of the points deduction it imposed.
“Each of these grounds was rejected by the appeal board, which found the independent commission was entitled to immediately impose the sanction it did. The four-point deduction will therefore remain in place.”
Premier League clubs are allowed to lose a maximum of £105m over three seasons but if they go over this figure they will breach PSR.
The written reasons in the original hearing revealed the Premier League had pushed for a six-point sanction – with eight points as an initial figure but discounted by two to reflect Forest’s early plea and co-operation.
Forest said in March they had been particularly unhappy with the Premier League’s submission and claimed their trust in the league had been eroded.
Fellow relegation strugglers Everton have been docked points under the PSR twice this season.
They were hit with a 10-point sanction in November for breaching permitted losses in the assessment period up to the end of the 2021-22 season, which was subsequently cut to six points on appeal.
A further two-point sanction related to the assessment period up to the end of last season is the subject of a separate appeal.
Last month, Forest took the unusual step of formally accusing a match official of bias after having three penalty appeals turned down in a 2-0 defeat at Everton.
Referee Anthony Taylor refused to point to the spot on each occasion, decisions approved by Stuart Attwell on VAR.
Afterwards, Forest released a statement on social media accusing Mr Attwell of being a Luton fan – a club also fighting to avoid the drop.
They also demanded that PGMOL, the body in charge of top-level football officials, release audio recordings around the three controversial moments.