WestStandLower
Player Valuation: £1.5m
I think to be fair to West Stand, the Chelsea issue is far more serious than ours. Not only should those payments be brought into consideration within the FFP. I.e. those payments be added to the loss for those years etc, but those payments also suggest illegal behaviour designed to manipulate the system. They also have a duty to be open about matters and if they have concealed payments then that is very serious.
Our issue is a straight forward accountancy matter and we fell over the wrong line in the books. The City and Chelsea issues relate to deliberate concealment of illegal payments and/or potentially fraudulently manipulating their accounts. Are issue is far more straight forward and not as serious. Allegedly.
From the little that’s out there the DD carried out by our owners did expose payments that potentially weren’t in accord with PL and indeed FA rules but weren’t “illegal” in that no law exists that forbids an outside entity taking responsibility for and or paying another entities liabilities.
None of us have a clue yet how the authorities will deal with the matters reported to them. It’s possible, thought I suspect not, a settlement agreement will be reached avoiding charges but it was suggested to me that there is a dilemma because come down to hard and you discourage self reporting going forward but if they don’t issue a points deduction then there will be uproar
Clubs self report on a regular basis mainly for minor infringements but the sanctions handed down when the governing bodies uncover the issue is always harsher.
The issue becomes even more complicated because Chelsea have reached a settlement with UEFA re the years 2012-2019