March 25 – In one of the most savage penalties ever handed down in English football for financial mismanagement, second-tier Birmingham City have been hit with a nine-point deduction for excessive spending and have been plunged into the relegation dogfight as a result.
The Championship club was deemed to have breached the English Football League’s profitability and sustainability rules, the equivalent of UEFA’s financial fair play regulations.
Birmingham are the first club to be deducted points since the EFL introduced its new regulations at the start of the 2016-17 season. It is the heaviest League points deduction in the English game since Leeds were stripped of 15 points in 2007.
Birmingham were reported by an independent commission to have incurred losses of nearly £48.8 million between 2015 and 2018. That is almost £10 million more than the accepted adjusted losses of £39 million over a three-year period.
The independent panel heard that they spent £7.45 million on four new players in January 2017, when Gianfranco Zola was manager, and a further £23.75 million to add 14 players to the squad that summer, by which time Harry Redknapp had taken charge.
Both Zola and Redknapp were sacked after short stints, both costing the club further huge sums.
Following the sanction, a sobering message for clubs trying to reach the Holy Grail of Premier League football, Birmingham drop from 13th to 18th in the Championship, five points above the relegation zone with eight games to play.
Both Birmingham City, who have avoided relegation on the final day in the past two seasons, and the EFL have 14 days to appeal.
In a statement Birmingham said: “Decisions by the owners and the board of directors were taken with the club’s best interests at heart and a determination to halt a cycle of decline and stagnation, with the intention of pushing on to fulfil ours and our fans’ ambitions.”
“This season we have taken significant strides forward on and off the pitch and the owners’ commitment and intention to drive continued improvement of the club’s fortunes will not diminish.”
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