Kieran Maguire explains the situation at Leicester and potential points deduction

Kieran Maguire explains the situation at Leicester City and the potential points deduction they face for the 2024/25 season.

Kieran Maguire of the Price Of Football talked about Leicester’s P&S breach charge which they were made aware of back in March.

The Foxes were out of jurisdiction from the Premier League, but now they have been promoted back from the Championship, the question has surfaced of what sort of punishment can be expected if they’re found guilty?

Benjamin: No points deduction Kieran but there is a literal and metaphorical fox in the hen house here because many people think there should have been a points deduction in the championship this season Kieran I’ll give you my Layman’s explanation of what I think happened and then I’ll give you my emotional response to it as a fan of one of the teams competing against Leicester City at the top of the Championship so Leicester breached um P&S rules in the Premier League the breach was confirmed this season in March well they were punished in March but we think we knew about this a long long time before in terms of the reporting um and Leicester were wriggling in between jurisdiction of the Premier League who weren’t allowed to punish them because the EFL because they were in the EFL and the EFL who weren’t allowed to punish them because the infraction took place in the Premier League my emotional reaction is that is utterly utterly ludicrous ridiculous how can you have a path between two leagues and an absence of jurisdiction do you agree with me and how and when will this loophole be closed

Kieran: In terms of where we are with Leicester this is one of the, this is a phrase which is used by the Premier League on a regular basis as part of its opposition to the independent regulator is part of the unintended consequences of the Premier League being formed as a breakaway competition with its own Constitution with its own rule book to that of the EFL. Rules is rules and if you don’t draw up your rule book well enough then there there are opportunities for clubs to say well we’re Leicester city, we didn’t join the EFL until July 2023 um therefore what happened in the 3 years when previously when we were not part of the EFL does not come under the EFL’s jurisdiction and the Premier League at the same time saying well we cannot apply a point deduction made by the Premier League on the EFL because we’ve got an agreement that that’s not the case and I think that that’s to a certain extent I think that is correct because in the Premier League it’s 38 games compared to 46 in the Championship so an 8-point deduction in the Premier League is not the equivalent of an 8-point deduction in in the Championship, Leicester employed the person who in my opinion is the best sports lawyer in the country to represent them and that’s what you do you know and regardless of of your views and the outcome you always hope that whoever your employing to represent you will do the best job possible and and they did, so what we have is a scenario that that Leicester were relegated from the Premier League and they lost a hell of a lot of money they’re the only club that I’m aware of has spent more money on wages than it generated in income in the history of the Premier League, the Premier League’s got 30 seasons of you know some at some point some some know fairly ludicrous behaviour, and therefore the club had sub suffered significant losses under normal circumstances you would have expected some form of charge. Have they breached the rules? The simple answer is I don’t know because you can’t you can’t say that with 100% certainty until you’ve been through the books with a fine tooth comb, but what we will see happen is that Leicester City Football Club limited currently owns one share in the English Football League limited and what it will do somewhere over the course of the next two or three weeks is it will sell that share or effectively swap that share with Sheffield United or Luton or Burnley and it will then become part of the Premier League, and the Premier League say welcome back Leicester by the way we need you part of the Premier League now and and do you know from the three years to the 30th of June 2023 you were part of us and therefore you were subject to rules come in have a chat you that’s what we expect to be the case um whether they’re guilty or not that’s for the tribunal if charges are made to determine what could be the the consequences that there has been talk of an up to 15 points deduction, now I think there’s an element of scare mongering in that, what we are seeing and you asked me earlier you know why my profile has expanded far more than I ever expected, it’s because I go through the numbers and try to give people an explanation as to what they mean and I also yeah in my view I try to keep it on a straight and narrow, whereas there are other people effectively doing a similar role to me who like to shout 100 points, demotion to League Two you know and and I’m not really yeah I’m a very boring teacher and you know from my point of view I try to sort of deal with things in in moderation

Benjamin: I’ve got a sort of double followup Kieran involving sympathy essentially A) do you have sympathy for Leicester and respect to the fans that they were lived everybody’s dream won the Premier League have a decent sized fan base, a nice stadium, good players and you’ve just told me that they spend more money on wages than they made an income and got relegated with that squad and the other side of sympathy we’ve seen the likes of Birmingham and Reading essentially have a bit of sympathy from the EFL because they worked with them, they did the approved business plans and consented to all the embargos and work with them. Leicester have done the exact opposite haven’t they, they said you can’t tell us what to do you can’t tell us to sell and Ndidi or Dewbury-Hall, you can’t tell us we can’t sign Harry Winks for 10 million Connor Coady and Hermanson the Keeper at the start of the season I guess that’s where your scaremongering number kind of originates from and talk to me about those two sides

Kieran: Yeah I do have sympathy for Leicester City Football Club because their wage bill was half the wage bill of Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United so if they’re only allow to spend half of the money on on wages as some as those other clubs and you know and we’re talking you 100 150 million pounds um that puts them at a disadvantage so they’ve they’ve got a disadvantage from a competitive balance point of view due to the nature of the rules and then to say to them oh you’ve been relegated so clearly the money you had been spending has not been spent particularly well but yeah that’s football, to subsequently say that you’re going to have an onfield or onfield punishment in the sense of a point deduction seems very unreasonable and also I was, yeah I was so proud of Leicester City in 2016 for winning the Premier League yeah having seen it’s not a cartel as such but there is an awful lot of protectionism as far as the Premier League is concerned with regards to it wasn’t the issue of winning Leicester winning the Premier League it was it was Leicester City taking one of the Champions League places which are so lucrative you know winning the Champions League next season could be worth 200 million quid to a club if you think that the average revenue of a non-parachute club in the Championship is 2025 million that yeah you’re making 10 times as much from a from a midweek afterthought competition so it’s a very strange environment in which we live in so I do have sympathy for Leicester. At the same time they were aware of what they were doing when they were signing players to long-term contracts there are stories around that there were relatively few relegation clauses in contract so seeing Leicester’s accounts that the year which was just, the season just finished I think will be fascinating because presumably there’ll be some significant promotion bonuses to take into consideration there …

Benjamin: Kieran can I just ask really quickly I saw reported maybe incorrectly I thought promotion bonuses didn’t count towards P&S, has that changed?

Kieran: I thought the same I mean I don’t know I remember listening somebody say this but if you take a look at a detailed breakdown of the Nottingham Forest charges and remember Nottingham Forest at a point deduction that promotion bonuses you don’t get an exemption for those

Benjamin: Wow

Kieran: Which intuitively seems very harsh because those promotion bonuses are somewhere normally in the region of 10 to 15 million and then you see by how much Forest were over the Premier League PSR limit, it seems a very harsh thing to do, so yeah it’s a mess of the making of the people who designed the rules I don’t think that they were stress tested enough for the potential consequences and we’re now living through that mess and clubs are getting increasingly grumpy, or rather club, yeah the Premier League it has spent 30 million pounds this season on legal bills that’s more than Bristol City will have earned from running the football club for a year or something like that so it, you know the balance is is just not quite right

Benjamin: So just round us out on Leicester quickly and we can move on potential double breach and not cooperating last year have you got an estimation for a minus number and particularly you’re speaking to Ipswich and Southampton fans here and maybe Everton fans

Kieran: I think in terms, well I mean Everton have got issues which all might come which is a separate issue I can understand the frustration of those the fans of Southampton, Leeds and so on as a result of Leicester in the eyes of fans being seen to get away with it and they sold James Maddison, they sold Harvey Barnes, Tielemans left you know so it wasn’t the case if they kept on a hold of everybody um from from the perspective of those rival fans I guess they would be saying well you deserved it, I’m slightly more sympathetic towards the club it it budgeted to finish 9th / 10th in the Premier League and it and it screwed up uh we’ve all made bad decisions when when recruiting as otherwise there be no divorce

This is how fans reacted as Kieran Maguire explains the situation at Leicester and the potential points deduction…

@Jackleeds206: Everton with a ten point deduction still managed to finish 15. I’m sorry but there is no deterrent now for cheaters I mean the epl could’ve took 20 points off Everton and they still would be safe. Basically do whatever you want to get the best players break the rules because you’ll be fine. The whole thing is a joke. The only way to deter cheaters is to relegate them.

@benthorn8393: I get that they cheated in the premier league so should be punished in the premier league. BUT cheating in the premier league made them stronger for the championship and gave them an unfair advantage. Then again, maybe that’s just me being a Leeds fan

@TheAaronJP: To put things into perspective, there was a 16 point difference between 17th place Nottingham Forest and 20th place Sheffield United.

@user-ue9dj5ge1c: What would happen if Leicester broke the rules in the championship and then got promoted to the premier league and staying there for 20 yes so could not be by there own rules be punished

@leeevans9654: Leicester cheated for 2 seasons, gained an unfair financial advantage, and as of today have not been punished for it. It stinks. No amount of points this season can make up for gaining £180m from promotion, and if relegated this season will then receive future parachute payments. The game is corrupt to the core.

@steveunwin830: It’s not a sporting competition and hasn’t been for a long time. It’s just a business competition in the Premier League.

@ianbennett1491: Dock them 15 points.

@bungabening3530: When Leeds got relegated, the three teams that finished directly above them had all overspent (Leicester, Everton and Forest) and gained an unfair advantage. It’s impossible to quantify how big that advantage was so why not make the rule easy for all concerned. For every £1 million pound you overspend you get deducted one point. And the accounts must be submitted once the season is over so that points deductions can be made immediately.

@saxbend: When enough time has passed since the rules were written, there is no such thing as an unintended consequence. The has been plenty of opportunity to fix league rules P&S rules, the offside rule, VAR, and everything else. The people in charge have chosen not to. All consequences are therefore very much by design.

@jefflinton: They’ll be deducted points from the start or not at all. Maresca saw the writing on the wall.

@stuarthardy8202: It’s quite clear to me that the squad of Leicester in 22/23 season deliberately stopped playing for their Manager and therefore they also betrayed the clubs fan base! Leicester city squad was simply too good to go down. But they soon jumped ship after the relegation

@kevinbailey3384: Basically Ipswich were the moral winners of the Championship last season, and Leicester in my view, robbed Leeds of an automatic place.

@sawyertuide7636: Although it won’t be Leicester, one day, a club is gonna break Derby’s record because of a points deduction

@1962gms: It is a mess, but Leicester are wriggling to avoid doing the right thing. They deserve the book throwing at them. (As do Man City, etc).

@divanojrv8351: If it’s 10+ points deduction … Foxes welcome back to the Championship. Although i hate Championship new promoted sides getting Relegating straight away

@RichLUFC: Lets hope for 15 points and a hefty fine. An example needs to be made of these cheat clubs. Too many of them popping up now.

@David-bs6fq: Point deductions are minimal as rule fairness is misty in the Premier League. Man City have taken the Premier League to court and any club relegated will do the same if accused of breaching (Cheating??) Sympathy? Come on.

@kevinbailey3384: As far as the 2024/25 season is concerned, Leicester will face a 12 point deduction in my view, and if there is any justice they will get relegated

@breshcling: Looks like Leicester are going to be a yo-yo club going forward

@josouthwood438:You can’t have sympathy. Everyone knows the rules and can’t compare finances to Liverpool. Much bigger world wide appeal

@waynejohnson1075: A few points… deduced. Why does the PL have different rules to the rest of English Football?… it’s ludicrous, AND harming our National sport to the detriment of the other 72x league clubs. It’s all making it up as they go along just to protect their own arses. I earn say, £25k/year. £500+ for a season ticket at my local club (2% of my earnings?) To watch someone on £25k/week (52x my wage) sit on the chuffing bench?… Liverpool fans complain at the weekend about how far away the trip to Norwich is, before jetting off to Fenerbache on the Wednesday. Cup competitions with different VAR rules depending on who you get drawn against? English Football is broken badly, but that’s ok….these “big” clubs earn more from Asian TV than they do their own local fans (which costs policing every week). Conclusion: If it carries on down its current path, football will soon be relegated to the wireless, for me. It is no longer the game I fell in love with when I was young and the changes since PL are not for the benefit of fair competition. As much as I love Football… from a sports fanatics point of view? The Ice Hockey 120 miles away (Nottingham) is looking REALLY tempting right now…

@johnshores4745: I agree break the rules get punished in whatever league you are in . However its gonna be fun watching Leicester try and get to a positive points total . I predict (a riot) around Xmas Leicester may just get to that stage

@leedsalex: Leicester overspent, ignored all the rules and continued to sign players for big money while their rivals stuck to rules, they ended up being promoted first time, and you ask should we feel sympathy for them? Hell no, my team has been royally screwed by them, first we got relegated while all 3 teams above us broke the rules(Leicester, Everton, Forest) and now denied automatic by a team still not following the rules and we’ll now have to sell all our best players due to it. Also 95% of fan bases could only dream of the last 10 years that Leicester fans have had.

@madeinyorkshire52: IMO the Premier League – as an organisation, is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE !