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

[Ante's Bubbly]

36 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.

 

Yes, so what happens then? Do we get leaway from the EFL to carry on paying the high wages, or do we get deducted points again for breaking the fair play rules in league 1 and go down another division and so on until all the high earners are off the books?

[Guest whowantstoberich]

I would say it was is and always will be completely out of our control. 
 

If they could punish us now why would they wait? 
 

If we asked a favour to postpone it why would they accept?

[Animis]

I wonder if DC has paid Nick De Marco's legal bill yet for the appeal - he might have well saved his cash and took the 12 points.

[Guest Smackavolley]

17 minutes ago, Harrysgame said:

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.

 

'This has for what ever reason caused players to not perform'

 

I think there's an argument to suggest they have performed to best of their ability. Which at this level, isn't anywhere near good enough. Some have never been good enough and some are not the players they were. I don't like like to call out players but too many of ours are simply GASH. Two or 3 will go and do OK somewhere and the rest will drift away.

 

Every team has had a Cardiff performance they can look on and say what if but I'm afraid this bunch are where they should be. On ability, effort and I'm sorry to say it, integrity.

 

 

[Bulldog]

It's not a valid question as we were never going to get a choice.

[TheEnchanter]

The mismanagement at the club would have caught up with us in the end.

[Big Jack]

If we had been given 6 points deduction last season we would have stayed up.

 

We would then have been able to recruit better last summer and probably had a much better season.

 

Either way the demise this season is mostly down to DC. For me DC has relegated us.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Big Jack

[TheEnchanter]

3 minutes ago, Asio otus said:

If we had been given 6 points deduction last season we would have stayed up.

 

We would then have been able to recruit better last summer and probably had a much better season.

 

Either way the demise this season is mostly down to DC. For me DC has relegated us.

 

I don't think we would necessarily have recruited better given our track record. 

[MallorcaOwl]

Regardless of DC's ambitions for the Club, and the money he spent to realise those ambitions, he recklessly managed the club. He failed on numerous occasions to appoint the right people to key positions, I don't mean the football manager as that can and will be a hit and miss decision. DC failed to appoint a credible advisor on football matters, he failed to appoint a Chief Exec to run the club, his decision making around season ticket and POTD prices was a catastrophic mistake. These actions, or inactions has led us the verge of relegation to Div 1 of the EFL.

[Big Jack]

2 minutes ago, TheEnchanter said:

 

I don't think we would necessarily have recruited better given our track record. 

Many players were put off by -12 points, so yes I do think we would have been better all round. Plus  we had started without no  points deduction which would definitely have been a big boost. You cant think that -12 was not going to have a massive impact on everyone at the club and putting off many players who may very well have been interested. DC caused all this and relegation is most certainly his doing.

[Ante's Bubbly]

41 minutes ago, LondonOwl313 said:

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.

 

I think if you just check back a few years you will see that it is common knowledge that we fiddled the accounts in 2017-18, in a clumsy attempt to avoid a completely valid charge of overspending. It is also common knowledge that we then handed our accounts in very, very late after delaying matters as much as we possibly could. Then when the EFL finally got its act together and took us to task we argued our case instead of taking the punishment, which then meant we had to go to a tribunal, which again delayed things to the point that even when the deductions had been announced they were not applied even at the end of last season. If we had not delayed proceedings in any way and instead gone for some kind of plea bargaining, we could have taken a points hit by at least last season, and it would not have been totally impossible to have moved things along much quicker and done it the season before. A much quicker conclusion could have been reached, of course, if we had submitted our accounts on time, without the fiddling and taken the hit straight away for overspending. By delaying matters, the upper management of our club postponed the points deduction from last to this season (at the very least).

 

Obviously a better solution for us as a club would have been not to have overspent in the first place. These forums, the press and football heaven programmes regularly discussed the poor state of our finances and how we were going to end up in big trouble for overspending, way before any action was taken by the club's upper management. The actions taken were reactive, rather than proactive, which has been far too regular a feature under Chansiri's ownership. Not being able to follow basic rules, not understanding what is going to happen next when you break them and then making bodged up attempts at trying to cover your tracks rather than trying to actually put things right by putting a better and more controlled spending structure in place, are just a few of the reasons why our chairman/owner gets so much stick, but that is a very deep and very long topic, most of which again, is all common knowledge. Understanding what has been happening, or thinking that you understand what has been happening depends on how much you want to go into it really and how much you want to keep up with events, but none of this is really surprising news is it?

[bladeshater]

Let it go stop living in the past

[farlego]

Obviously I would prefer us to do the great escape but Assuming we do go down I hope it is by less than 6 points. If that’s the case do you think that DC will have to admit to himself that it is mishandling of the club that has caused the relegation and either sell up or appoint someone to run the club going forward?

[Big Jack]

3 minutes ago, bladeshater said:

Let it go stop living in the past

We are not living in the past the actions of DC has affected the here and now , plus will continue to have further ramifications next season.

 

Wish we could let it go its not like one game we lost and then move on, these actions have affected the present and the future. 

[sonofbert2]

We got what we were given and it was outside our control.

 

I still maintain that starting the season on -12 with a siege mentality and the majority of supporters blaming the EFL and actually allowed in would have seen us do better.

 

The reduction to -6 would have seen a collective positive too.

 

I remember Leeds when it happened to them and for us it would have/could have been similar.

 

The players, in particular, have had nobody to both hold them accountable or spur them on. Some of the dodgy decisions by refs may not have happened.  We’ll never, ever know.

[Ante's Bubbly]

4 minutes ago, Asio otus said:

Many players were put off by -12 points, so yes I do think we would have been better all round. Plus  we had started without no  points deduction which would definitely have been a big boost. You cant think that -12 was not going to have a massive impact on everyone at the club and putting off many players who may very well have been interested. DC caused all this and relegation is most certainly his doing.

 

Yes, I think that we have suffered at least two season's worth of threat hanging over the managers, players and fans,  instead of just one, or less even.

[Nero]

2 hours ago, LondonOwl313 said:

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.

You haven't read the original tribunal then. The EFL argued for the sanction to be done in previous season. The tribunal said directly that the consequences of that, relegation, were unfair and we should have the chance to play our way out.

[Tommy Crawshaw]

1 hour ago, Gob_Bluth said:

 

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

 

Yes the PFA put the kibosh on it and said no way will they allow salary caps or limits to squad sizes.

 

The PFA rule and are totally out of touch with reality and the pandemic situation.

[Guest LondonOwl313]

11 minutes ago, Nero said:

You haven't read the original tribunal then. The EFL argued for the sanction to be done in previous season. The tribunal said directly that the consequences of that, relegation, were unfair and we should have the chance to play our way out.

Yes I’ve seen that.. and agree it would be unfair to impose it if it meant automatic relegation.

 

However, that’s not the same thing as saying it would be applied had we been more than 12 points clear, which is how most seem to have interpreted it. If we’d have finished say 15 points clear, the EFL would have requested that it be applied the following season given it’s not much of a punishment to deduct after the event, when it doesn’t affect any outcomes.

 

The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

[Avon barksdale]

What’s definite is Chansiri made a complete mess of our accounts and the sale of the ground to himself was concluded very poorly and amateurish at best . To then fight it tooth and nail seems like to have delayed the inevitable and set us back even more.