For breaking Premier League finance rules
March 26—Nottingham Forest, an English Premier League club, has lodged an appeal against the four-point penalty imposed by the English Premier League last week for breaching the competition’s financial rules, Andrew Warshaw reports for Inside World Football.
“Nottingham Forest can confirm that it has today appealed against the four-point sanction imposed by the Commission about the Club’s breach of the Premier League’s Profit & Sustainability Rules,” the club said in a brief statement on its website.
“The club will not be making any further statement now.”
On March 18, Forest was docked the points after admitting to breaching the PSR threshold of £61 million by £34.5 million.
Reacting at the time, Forest said they were “extremely disappointed” by the ruling and “dismayed by the tone” of the Premier League’s argument.
“We believe that the high levels of cooperation the club has shown during this process, and which are confirmed and recorded in the commission’s decision, were not reciprocated by the Premier League,” Forest said in a statement at the time.
The four-point deduction meant they dropped into the relegation zone, one point behind 17th-placed Luton and four adrift of Everton.
Premier League clubs are usually allowed a maximum loss of £105 million over a three-year assessment period. However, this is reduced by £22 million per season for any season spent in the tier-2 Championship.
Forest was promoted to the Premier League in May 2022 following a 23-year absence, meaning two seasons of their three-year assessment period were as a Championship club.
They are the second top-flight team to be penalized for PSR (profit and sustainability rules) breaches this season after Everton was hit with a 10-point penalty in November, reduced to six on appeal.
The commission that imposed the sanction against Forest noted the club’s breach was “serious.”
“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,” said the commission.
