The points deduction. Could have, should have, would have.

[Ante's Bubbly]

There are three points here really, but all three are to do with the points deduction we fought so hard to postpone last season. I just wondered what might have been if we had just said, ok, fair's fair and gone quietly.

 

Could we have taken the points deduction last season?

 

Should we have taken the points deduction last season?

 

Would we have been better off, or worse off now, if we had taken the points deduction last season?

[Guest HillsboroughOwlNI]

Or if we’d humbly accepted the charge we might have got away with the 6pt deduction last season which wouldn’t have relegated us.

 

All said with the benefit of hindsight of course, but DC seems to have this wonderful skill of making bad choices. If he played the Lotto and there was only one combination that didn’t win the jackpot, guess which numbers lucky elephant man would choose... 

Edited April 16, 2021 by HillsboroughOwlNI

[Guest wilyfox]

Would have been worse last year, in my opinion. Too many high earners still on the books and no match day revenues. Now we drop, but many are free to leave and some fans will return to at least ease cash flow probs a bit.

[Gob_Bluth]

Even if it was a 6 point deduction applied last season, even with the extra 6 points this season we'd still be in the relegation zone.

 

I mean maybe without the points deduction this season we'd have been able to recruit better in the summer, but all signs point to us having no money to spend so I'm not sure we'd have recruited any differently.

 

Lets be honest, over the last couple of seasons based on whats happened on the pitch we deserve to go down, we'd have gone down this season with or without the deduction imo

[yeadonowl]

If the management and whole squad hadn’t spectacularly made a mess of the second half of last season then we’d have been able to take the punishment last season with no loss of league status 

 

As it was the recruitment in the summer was hampered and we were left with the absolute crap we signed. Add to this the incompetence shown at both team managerial and board level the whole thing is a recipe for disaster 

[Guest wilyfox]

2 minutes ago, yeadonowl said:

If the management and whole squad hadn’t spectacularly made a mess of the second half of last season then we’d have been able to take the punishment last season with no loss of league status 

 

As it was the recruitment in the summer was hampered and we were left with the absolute crap we signed. Add to this the incompetence shown at both team managerial and board level the whole thing is a recipe for disaster 

Agree, but it wasn’t just the deduction that hampered recruitment. We had very little to spend. If the money was there, I’m sure we could have done more despite the handicap. 

[Guest Andy W]

21 minutes ago, Ante's Bubbly said:

There are three points here really, but all three are to do with the points deduction we fought so hard to postpone last season. I just wondered what might have been if we had just said, ok, fair's fair and gone quietly.

 

Could we have taken the points deduction last season?

 

Should we have taken the points deduction last season?

 

Would we have been better off, or worse off now, if we had taken the points deduction last season?

I'm not actually sure we had the choice to take the penalty last season..I think they just applied it this

[sonofbert2]

You could argue the points deduction should be applied to the season the “offence” was committed.

[matthefish2002]

In hindsight should have took points deduction last season and could have started a rebuild 1 year earlier.

[Ante's Bubbly]

16 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

Would have been worse last year, in my opinion. Too many high earners still on the books and no match day revenues. Now we drop, but many are free to leave and some fans will return to at least ease cash flow probs a bit.

 

Yes, that's pretty much what I thought, but would we have been forced to sell players to meet the fairplay regs in league 1? 

 

As there are no parachute payments made by the football league for clubs dropping down a division, to cover existing wages and contract terms, do we get a certain amount of grace, or an allowance for a certain period of time to get the wage bill down?

[Guest wilyfox]

7 minutes ago, Ante's Bubbly said:

 

Yes, that's pretty much what I thought, but would we have been forced to sell players to meet the fairplay regs in league 1? 

 

As there are no parachute payments made by the football league for clubs dropping down a division, to cover existing wages and contract terms, do we get a certain amount of grace, or an allowance for a certain period of time to get the wage bill down?

Who was buying players last summer..? Not many were in a position to do so. Cash sales were noticeably down. We’d have had many on big wages that we couldn’t shift.

[Guest LondonOwl313]

1 minute ago, Andy W said:

I'm not actually sure we had the choice to take the penalty last season..I think they just applied it this

Agreed.. it seems to be common knowledge on here that the penalty would have been applied last season if only we’d have been 12 points clear of the relegation zone. That can’t be the case though as it would defeat the point of it.. it’s a sporting sanction, its applied irrespective of the consequences. Would be totally pointless if they only deduct points from safe mid table sides who it makes no difference to as that’s no disincentive for clubs.

 

The main reason it was applied this season is timescales. They charged us in November 2019, which I assume is the earliest they had the evidence to do so following the submission of the accounts to July 2018. Then we went through a complicated legal process plus the pandemic which slowed everything down. I’m sure if we hadn’t contested it then the verdict would have been delivered sooner, while there was still a decent chunk of the season left, and the deduction would then have been applied last season like Birmingham’s was the year before.

 

Given we dragged it out, the verdict wasn’t delivered until July, after the season had finished. Therefore it would be unfair to apply it at that point, either because 1. We’re more than 12 points clear so it’s meaningless as a punishment or 2. We’re less than 12 points clear so it would automatically relegate us.

 

Its the timescales that determine when it’s applied rather than the outcome. If it was the outcome that drove the decision on when to apply it then Charlton would have had a very good case for taking legal action because of it, which they didn’t do.

 

So I think it’s largely a myth that it would have been applied last season had we been more than 12 points clear.

[The only way is S6]

14 minutes ago, matthefish2002 said:

In hindsight should have took points deduction last season and could have started a rebuild 1 year earlier.

How come, if a lot of contracts don’t expire until this summer? 

[Gob_Bluth]

23 minutes ago, Ante's Bubbly said:

 

Yes, that's pretty much what I thought, but would we have been forced to sell players to meet the fairplay regs in league 1? 

 

As there are no parachute payments made by the football league for clubs dropping down a division, to cover existing wages and contract terms, do we get a certain amount of grace, or an allowance for a certain period of time to get the wage bill down?

 

The regulations on wages for league 1 & 2 have been scrapped, they never came into play

[WalthamOwl]

We shouldn’t have been put in a position by Chansiri to have any point deduction in the first place. 

[0742]

It would have been better to take it last season and relegate us. 

 

We would have had a decent team/squad for league one, an atmosphere around the club and fans of being harshly treated and that would have meant stability and more of a togetherness. I think that would have meant we were pushing for promotion from league one this season. 

 

 

[Harrysgame]

In hindsight should have taken the deduction last year. Think the whole uncertainty has destabilised the club. This has for what ever reason caused players to not perform.

 

These legal battles must have impacted signings and such like.

Like anything sooner you face up to problems sooner you fix them.

[Worksop Wednesday]

15 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

Who was buying players last summer..? Not many were in a position to do so. Cash sales were noticeably down. We’d have had many on big wages that we couldn’t shift.

 

 

sorry trying to follow but if wed have gone down last season would we not still have had the same high earners (eg Bannan, Westwood )this season regardless whether we'd have been in championship or L1 ?

But had we  gone down we could possibly have got rid of some before season started. 

There would have been no crowds for math day income this season anyway in either.

Supposed we've probably had more TV cash this season in Championship than would have had in L1  

 

Q; How would this seasons side have fared in L1 this season?

[Guest wilyfox]

1 minute ago, Worksop Wednesday said:

 

 

sorry trying to follow but if wed have gone down last season would we not still have had the same high earners (eg Bannan, Westwood )this season regardless whether we'd have been in championship or L1 ?

But had we  gone down we could possibly have got rid of some before season started. 

There would have been no crowds for math day income this season anyway in either.

Supposed we've probably had more TV cash this season in Championship than would have had in L1  

 

Q; How would this seasons side have fared in L1 this season?

football finance gurus say relegation to league one costs around 8mil in revenue. We could have sold Bannan & Iorfa no doubt, but would that have been enough - especially with no matchday revenues for the whole campaign? Just my opinion, but think relegation last year would have hit us even harder. At least we know for sure that many high earners will be off the books, and the prospect of fans returning. 

[Ante's Bubbly]

14 minutes ago, sonofbert2 said:

You could argue the points deduction should be applied to the season the “offence” was committed.

 

Yes that was my original argument, we could have taken the full 12 point hit in 2017-2018 and still stayed up!

 

 

Although, because of the delay in handing in accounts, there is always at least a single season delay, but you could argue that going down at the end of the 2018-2019 season would have helped us to clear out the chaff and start rebuilding.

 

The rules as they stand do not punish clubs the way they should, in the same season, or save other clubs they way that they could if the cheating was stopped altogether. It is similar in games with a team getting a player sent off against you towards the end of a game. The player can cheat against you all game, injure your players, stop you from scoring illegally etc, but the next few teams that play them are the ones that benefit from the dirty herbert being suspended.

 

The fair play rules need some changes to be made to level the field a bit. I thought that the maximum wage per division was a good way of stopping teams from needing parachute payments from the prem, with contracted wages not being paid beyond the limits of whatever division you end up in. 

 

In my opinion the money from the Premiership would be better used as an incentive to teams finishing in the top 6 to 8 spots in each league. At least then, each team that performs well season after season will be able to improve their team with the money they get and go again the season after, instead of ending up skint for attempting to keep up with all the teams getting parachute payments. At the moment teams that fail in the premiership are minted for the next three seasons, which makes it more and more difficult for other teams to compete with them for better players and teams that go for it and just fail by a few points are then in trouble for the next three years.

 

In the prem, teams get extra money from Europe for finishing in the top third of the division, but teams in the other divisions only get anything extra by winning promotion, the other 4 or 5 teams that came very close get nothing but the debts from trying to compete with the big boys. At least if there was some kind of sliding scale in each division for finishing in the top 8 say, another five clubs would get extra money for coming close and then be able to mount another campaign the season after. If the teams that come down are good enough, they can still finish in the top 8 and either get promoted or get extra money for the next campaign.