Leicester City have won their appeal against the Premier League but a points deduction could still be on the cards this season.
Steve Cooper will have been elated when news broke on Tuesday evening that Leicester City had won their appeal against the Premier League.
In March 2024, the Premier League charged Leicester with a breach of their spending rules in the three-year period leading up the the 2022/23 season.
Nottingham Forest and Everton faced similar charges during the 2023/24 campaign and were both docked points.
After appealing to an independent committee, Leicester were found not guilty and, at present, will not be slapped with a points deduction.
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Leicester City may still face Premier League points deduction this season.
However, the financial mismanagement at the club over the last several years could still come back to cost the Foxes.
Leicester City News have spoken exclusively to TBR’s Head of Football Content, Business, Finance & Governance, Adam Williams, to get an insight into the club’s financial situation.
And rather worryingly for fans of the Midlands outfit, Williams believes Leicester could still be deducted points by the Premier League ‘this season’.
He said: “The Premier League is currently in the process of beefing up its legal team with a couple of new senior hires.
“I’m no legal expert but that is no surprise given the implications of this case. It seems like the drafting of the rules has been botched.
“Leicester have essentially got off on a technicality. They have changed their year-end accounting date in advance of relegation so that they weren’t technically a Premier League club when they submitted their accounts.
“On their part, it is incredibly smart and you can’t blame them for gaming the rules of a system which many people justifiably think is designed to keep the non-Big Six clubs from showing any ambition.
“But it shows that the rules themselves are not fit for purpose if they can be sidestepped so easily. I’ve seen the phrase ‘don’t hate the player, hate the game’ used to sum up the situation. That sounds about right to me.
“In terms of their future compliance with PSR, Leicester have accepted that they exceeded the £105m threshold for 2022-23, so that is officially part of their calculation for the current PSR assessment period.
“As they have spent one season of the last three in the second tier, they are allowed to lose £83m over a rolling three-year period. So immediately, you can see that they have a lot of work to do.
“We don’t have access to their accounts for 2023-24 yet and we won’t do until early next year.
“But they needed generate huge, huge profit from player sales to meet the EFL’s PSR threshold, which is lower than the Premier League’s.
“I doubt that they have made it under the limit even with the deals that they did do. The EFL didn’t think they would. We can’t say for certain, but the margins are very tight.
“But then you are asking, who has jurisdiction here? The Premier League or the EFL?
“Either way, I don’t think this is the end of the story. Not by a long shot. My domain is finance and business rather than arbitration, but the analysts whose view I trust on this believe that a points deduction is still possible, perhaps even probably this season.”
- READ MORE: What Nick De Marco said to Leicester City fans after winning PSR case against Premier League
Will Leicester City survive a Premier League points deduction
Williams’ comments are likely to make grim reading for Leicester fans, who are well aware their club are already up against it in the battle for survival.
Leicester sit 15th in the Premier League table having lost two and drawn one of their opening three games.
Meetings with Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa were always expected to prove tough but their performances in both games were questionable.
Gary Lineker expressed his worry over Leicester after they lost to Fulham and if the club were to be hit with a points deduction before 2024/25 comes to a close, it is really hard to see them avoiding the drop.