Nottingham Forest docked four points for breaching Premier League’s profitability rules
Nottingham Forest have been handed a four-point deduction for breaching spending limits.
42 players have arrived at the City Ground for more than £250 million since they returned to the Premier League - a policy that landed the club in hot water when they were charged with breaking profit and sustainability rules in January.
The points deduction now places them in the Premier League relegation zone.
Nottingham Forest was referred to an independent Commission on 15 January, following an admission by the club that it had breached the relevant PSR threshold.
Premier League clubs are allowed to lose £105m over a three-year period.
However, Forest’s permitted losses were limited to £61m because they spent two years of that period in the Championship.
Nottingham Forest were promoted to the Premier League after beating Huddersfield Town in the Championship Playoff Final 1-0 in May 2022.
Thousands of fans descended on Wembley Stadium for the first time in 30 years as the team looked to get back into the top tier of English Football after a 23-year exile.
Since then, the Reds have signed 42 players at a cost of about £250m.
In the summer, Steve Cooper, who was head coach at the time, saw his side bring in a whole host of players, although some were on loan.
But the new signings couldn't help save Cooper's job as he was dismissed in December.
At the time, Forest had just one win in 13 matches.
The owners of the club then appointed former Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur boss Nuno Espirto Santo.
Since his arrival, Nuno's side has only won three out of twelve Premier League games.
Their latest result was a 1-1 draw against Luton Town on Saturday 16th March.
Before the match, the sides were only separated by 3 points, with the Hatters sat below Forest in the relegation zone.
Nuno called the match a "must-win" game but despite being given the lead through Chris Wood in the 34th minute, Forest had to share the points after Luke Berry smashed in an equaliser.
The commission noted Forest’s breach was “serious” and stated in its conclusion:
“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.”
The commission ruling added:
“When a club like Forest took the risk of effectively ignoring the PSR warning from its finance director before the January window in 2023, and rather than looking to sell players, it added players to its squad, ultimately leaving itself with just two weeks to sell Player A (Brennan Johnson) in the summer 2023 window, such risk taking and ‘sailing close to the wind’ needs a proportionate sanction to maintain the integrity of the Premier League.”
Here's what some Forest fans said:
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