FFP near to being resolved

http://www.westlondonsport.com/qpr/football-news-wls-qpr-ffp-dispute-close-finally-resolved

QPR’s long-running Financial Fair Play dispute is expected to be resolved during the next fortnight.

West London Sport revealed last May that the issue would be decided by arbitration after lengthy legal wrangling between Rangers and the Football League.
And an arbitration panel, which will be made up of three QCs, will sit next week and hear evidence from both sides.

Rangers are challenging the legality of the League’s Championship FFP rules, under which the club face a massive fine for losses recorded during the 2013-2014 financial year.

Promotion to the Premier League was achieved that season, but relegation the following year left QPR open to a potential fine of more than £50m.

Despite several subsequent reports of an imminent deal between the two parties, legal arguments failed to resolve the issue.

With League rules having stipulated that clubs making a loss of more than £8m would be subject to a fine, QPR reported a loss of £9.8m for the year in question.

But that was only after the club’s owners wrote off £60m in directors’ loans in an attempt to boost their case against a heavy fine.

QPR have also argued that they should not be punished according to FFP rules introduced after the club committed to player contracts while in the Premier League between 2011 and 2013, as they could not then be reasonably expected to comply with the new regulations once relegated to the Championship.

 

Excellent. It will be good to get this monkey off our back. The club's argument that we shouldn't be fined retrospectively for player contracts we signed before FFP was introduced seems entirely reasonable.

 

It seem that the financial fair play decision is fast approaching.

Does anyone have any more news or information on this?

http://www.footballeconomy.com/content/decision-qpr-fine-near

"A decision is at last near on whether QPR breached financial fair play regulations in winning promotion to the Premier League three years ago. The dispute with the Football League will be heard by an arbitration panel made up of three QCs at a hearing next week.

QPR challenged the legality and accounting rules of the Football League's Financial Fair Play Rules which at the time restricted clubs to maximum losses of £8m. While the club announced an annual loss of £9.8m for the 2013-14 season, they wrote off £60m in loans and that figure was transferred to profit and loss as an 'exceptional item'. The Football League says that such equity injections were not permitted.

If QPR win the argument, it could have a knock effect for Bournemouth and Leicester City, who have also challenged the League's attempts to impose a fine on them for recording sizeable losses during their promotion to the top flight."

 

Sorry Beth, I did not refresh the page and did not see your earlier post.

I think that you need to merge my thread.

 

Worrying to see we are alleged to be £239m pound in debt:
"The club can ill afford to lose (challenge to £58m fine). The European Football Landscape Report released in January showed QPR are £239m in debt"
( http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/qpr-to-finally-learn-fate-over-58m-fine-a3541566.html )

 

This is bad news IMO. Many had speculated that the FL would be steamrollered by a half decent legal team and that we would get a slapped wrist while the rules were amended to cope better with the situation. The latter has happened I believe but the League seem determined to still come after us and have not caved as predicted. No doubt the 'big' clubs will not support doing upstarts like QPR a favour. The bottom line is that even a small percentage of the maximum possible fine will hurt us badly given that the owners appear to have turned off the investment tap completely.

 

I expect the FL answer to that is that we accepted their FFP rules when we rejoined the league in 2013. PLUS we then signed players & paid above average Championship wages to those for the 2013-14 season.

I doubt that this is a gimme for us.

 

Yes, the FFP may have a case for the players we signed later - and it's unlikely we're going to get a free pass on this, but we need to lance the boil and put it behind us (sorry for the metaphor!). I sometimes feel management has, on transfers anyway, felt frozen by this thing hanging over us. Owners won't invest or spend if they think it adds fuel to the fire.

I should think this will be a binding arbitration, perhaps with appeal to the Court of Appeal. It may yet settle before or during the forthcoming hearing.

 

It's so f*cking ridiculous that there is no FFP in the Premier League yet the 'lesser' clubs are 'handcuffed' by tinpot rules...

 

There's a lot riding on it. Not only does it affect clubs like Leicester who are awaiting judgement, but presumably the clubs who have already been sanctioned like Forest and Fulham (transfer embargoes). Any hint the ffp rules have been undermined and they'll want something back. Seems a strange punishment to fine a club for going into debt, particularly when the owners have agreed to write off the debt, but football is full of such contradictions.

 

I just wonder whether that perhaps, if a team signs a player of XYZ wages, and is subsequently relegated, then maybe there should be clauses / caviats stating that these contracts were signed when on Premiership income so a time period should be allowed for a club in which to "dispose" of these assests.

 

Took us too ****ing long to dump SWP and his cling-on mates though... we should'be disposed of that dwarf down the lavvy!

 

yeah
but he did score the winner against chelseahehe

 

I am not expecting good news.

I envisage that we will receive a hefty fine, but the question is will it be around the 8M GBP level, or higher (up to 58M).
Plus, will there be any type of player transfer ban.

Still, it will be great to finally complete this "saga" that has been hanging around neck so for so long ....until we hit the next QPR crisis!

 

Being the eternal optimist on the board

I am hoping for about a 8m fine...and no transfer embargo (surely if that was in the offing...we would be importing players at a big rate at the moment)

 

I think that is what the Club are also "hoping" for.
But alas, all we can do is wait and see.

But it will be a "big" decision for the club.

 

Transfer embargo might be a good thing??

 

The cheap players may be in anticipation of a large fine

 

Will the fine count on our account for this year's FFP? We could liable for a new fine if the fine exceeds the amount we're allowed to spend. And so it goes on ad nauseum

 

Does anyone know when this is to be decided ??