EFL Appeal and Macclesfield are Down. No Appeal Against Sheffield Wednesday.

I was a bit slow in finding out about Macclesfield’s latest points deduction – too much time spent watching the snooker.

The EFL appealed the independent commission’s findings and Macclesfield are now relegated following their deduction totalling 17 points. I backed them to be relegated, so will be heading off to collect my winnings but not with any great satisfaction.

It’s hard to understand how a club that goes into administration can be deducted 12 points yet a club that is attempting to stay afloat will lose 17. As a supporter I would be fuming about this situation. They wouldn’t want the owner they have and yet there is little they can do about it as the club crumbles.

The process smacks of the EFL wanting to see the back of them and ultimately getting that by appealing the initial finding and getting a suspended deduction put into operation immediately. How is it that a commission can decide, and have it overruled by another panel so easily, with that being the binding conclusion?

From being so hard done by, Stevenage should consider themselves the luckiest club out there. Two relegation places should have been up for grabs but for Bury’s demise. So, they got lucky first off because half the relegation slots were wiped out but to have such a woeful record and stay up is remarkable. They won only 3 of 36 games and yet avoided relegation. As my children would say - ‘lushy’.

Is some subconscious reasoning behind these decisions? Clearly Macclesfield Town are in a mess with a high possibility of going under and having them out removes the danger of that event occurring in the football league, much as I do not understand the sanctions placed on Sheffield Wednesday.

As a crime it is relatively straight forward to understand. They breached the EFL’s profitability and sustainability rules which say that over a three-year period your losses must not exceed £39m. Their losses for those three years would have been around £66m but the sale of Hillsbrough (to their owner) brought in £60m. As such I believe this would not be illegal but for the fact that the sale didn’t go through until after the accounting period had finished thereby attempting to hide the massive overspending.

I also now understand what people mean when they talk about the North / South divide. Reading sold their ground for a mere £26.5m. Selling your ground for £60m gives you more wriggle room as you continue to battle against EFL sustainability rules.

Wednesday were charged in November 2019 yet things dragged on. The disciplinary commission did not sit until June 2020 and, nine days after the conclusion of the Championship season ruled that Sheffield Wednesday would suffer a 12-point penalty, only applicable for the following season.

Wigan fans felt truly insulted. Their 12-point deduction was instant, as laid out by the EFL regulations, but due to somebody taking massive liberties with their club. The EFL had sanctioned all the fit and proper persons test and then took it upon themselves to put a further squeeze on the fans – not the owners who had done a runner. The administrator steps in and those and the legal fees head to the top of the list of the club’s costs.

Back to Sheffield Wednesday. How is it possible that that a 12-point deduction can be deferred to next season? Charges were brought in November, so the only reason possible is that the decision was made after the ‘normal’ playing season – that is after the end of the regulation season, so no play-offs included.

Delving further into the EFL regulations uncovers some interesting information.

With regards to the 12-point deduction concerning insolvency they entered a caveat. If the insolvency occurs before 5 pm on the fourth Thursday in March, then the point deduction is immediate. After that but before the end of the normal playing season then the deduction applies the following season if 12 points wouldn’t take them down and outside the normal playing season the deduction would apply to the following season.

These rules were designed to prevent clubs from being placed into administration knowing that 12 points wouldn’t harm their retained place in a particular division.

So, perhaps the EFL will argue that the findings weren’t released until after the finish of the normal season because that is the only reason I can see for not applying a 12 point deduction for Sheffield Wednesday to the season just finished. I know this regulation applies to insolvency but delaying an announcement is akin to what the EFL were supposedly trying to avoid. Charges were brought in November and if the commission had sat prior to the end of the season and reached their conclusion prior to the end of the season, deciding that a 12 point deduction was appropriate then surely it had to be applied to that season.

I might be too cynical but Macclesfield were providing plenty of headaches to the EFL and that headache has now been removed. A club with a migraine is Charlton Athletic and they would have been the fortunate beneficiaries of Sheffield Wednesday’s affliction. Charlton themselves are under a transfer embargo, struggling to confirm who their owners are and could, under a worst-case scenario, still go out of business.

The cynic in me see things this way. Which of Charlton and Sheffield Wednesday give the biggest headache now? Charlton, surely, because not really knowing who your owners are and having no money in the pot is more pressing. Charlton’s immediate future is under threat. Sheffield Wednesday are a problem for the future. How do they keep up with the massive outgoings, yet put the brakes on their spending? Next season is less likely to provide a route to the promised land now that they must overcome a 12-point deficit but that’s a problem for tomorrow.

The EFL should have appealed the Sheffield Wednesday decision much as they did the Macclefield one but, worryingly, to what end? Offer some chancers at Charlton a way to profit further from a struggling club?

Next season will be incredibly challenging. It is hard to see how clubs distressed prior to coronavirus will keep their heads above water and I am convinced others will go under.

There is a petition doing the rounds. 10,000 signatures get an acknowledgement, 100,000 to be considered for a debate in Parliament.

It is not about whether your club is the one that has suffered. The treatment of Bury, Wigan, Macclesfield and Charlton fans could happen at any number of clubs. Football clubs outside the top sphere will go through tough times but they need to be protected. It is far too easy for somebody to come along and syphon money out of clubs without having to demonstrate any wealth or funding. This is a petition that should be signed by a million fans to demonstrate the depth of feeling.

It won’t solve the problems in one stroke, but we have to stop clubs being passed around at will by people only intent on taking money out for themselves. The EFL are not really set up to be the custodians of football clubs but whoever does it needs to be invested with the power to regulate ownership.

Please sign the petition and get your friends and colleagues to do it. A million names is possible.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/331589

Link also in Twitter under #wiganpetition