Due to a violation of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), Nottingham Forest lost four points and entered the relegation zone.
Forest have seven days to file an appeal, but the team is still debating whether to do so and are awaiting legal advice.
After verifying they had violated the Premier League’s PSR for the evaluation period ending in 2022–2023, the team was charged in January.
On Monday afternoon, the Premier League said that Forest had acknowledged exceeding their allowed spending limit of £61 million by £34.5 million in PSR.
Over a three-year evaluation period, clubs are typically permitted a maximum loss of £105 million; however, this is lowered by £22 million per season for any seasons during which they are in the Championship.
Forest drops one spot to 18th in the Premier League, one point behind 17th-place Luton as a result of the four-point deduction.
An independent panel has immediately deducted four points from Nottingham Forest FC for violating the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSRs) for the season ending in 2022–2023, according to a statement released by the league.
“Nottingham Forest was referred to an independent commission on January 15, following an admission by the club that it had breached the relevant PSR threshold of £61m by £34.5m. The threshold was lower than £105m as the club spent two seasons of the assessment period in the EFL Championship.
“The case was heard in accordance with new Premier League rules, which provide an expedited timetable for PSR cases to be resolved in the same season the complaint is issued.
“The independent commission determined the sanction following a two-day hearing this month, at which the club had the opportunity to detail a range of mitigating factors. The commission found that the club had demonstrated “exceptional cooperation” in its dealings with the Premier League throughout the process.”
The commission noted Forest’s breach was “serious” and stated in its conclusion: “The four points sanction is not to punish Forest so much as it is to be fair to the other clubs; to give the public confidence that when a club invests as Forest did to compete in the Premier League, it still needs to comply with the PSR threshold for losses.”
The commission ruling added: “When a club like Forest took the risk of effectively ignoring the PSR warning from its finance director before the January window in 2023, and rather than looking to sell players, it added players to its squad, ultimately leaving itself with just two weeks to sell Player A [Brennan Johnson] in the summer 2023 window, such risk taking and ‘sailing close to the wind’ needs a proportionate sanction to maintain the integrity of the Premier League.”
Four of Nuno Espirito Santo’s team’s nine remaining games this season are against teams ranked 14th or lower.
In their first game following the international break, Forest will host 14th-place Crystal Palace on Saturday, March 30. Over the following two months, they will also visit 16th-place Everton, 19th-place Burnley, and bottom-place Sheffield United.
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