Nottingham Forest have been found guilty of breaching the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules
Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo on the bench ahead of a game against Luton Town(Image credit: Getty Images)
The fight to avoid relegation has taken a fresh turn after Nottingham Forest were deducted four points for breaching the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules.
The punishment sees Forest drop into 18th place, a point below Luton Town, who are safe as the table stands.
Although Premier League clubs are allowed to lose £105 million over a three-year period, Forest’s permitted losses were limited to £61m because they spent two of those years in the Championship.
Upon their long-awaited return to the top division in 2022, they spent heavily to strengthen their squad, signing 32 players in total last season.
Morgan Gibbs-White, who joined Forest for a club record fee of £25m (Image credit: Getty Images)
That huge outlay left Forest in danger of exceeding their permitted losses unless they could sell star player Brennan Johnson for a substantial fee.
Forest admitted the charge but argued that they had waited until the end of the transfer window to sell Johnson to Tottenham Hotspur in order to maximise the price they received for the academy graduate.
Rather than accepting a £30m offer from Brentford, that could have been booked as pure profit in last year's accounts, they held out until September and received £47.5m instead.
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An independent panel rejected Forest's argument that this was the right decision to take for the club's long-term sustainability.
Tottenham's Brennan Johnson battles with Forest's Moussa Niakhate on his return to the City Ground (Image credit: Getty Images)
What next for Nottingham Forest?
An appeal is expected as Forest fight to avoid a costly and damaging relegation back to the Championship.
There are nine games left for Nuno Espirito Santo's side to drag themselves out of trouble but they have won just three times since he took over in December.
In November, Everton were deducted 10 points, which was reduced to six on appeal, for breaching the same rules.
Forest were only behind Everton on goal difference, but now trail them by four points after the Premier League's latest verdict.
Sean Cole is a freelance journalist. He has written for FourFourTwo, BBC Sport and When Saturday Comes among others. A Birmingham City supporter and staunch Nikola Zigic advocate, he once scored a hat-trick at St. Andrew’s (in a half-time game). He also has far too many football shirts and spends far too much time reading the Wikipedia pages of obscure players.
