EFL ‘own goal’ over transfer embargoes

A LEADING football finance expert says the EFL have scored a PR own goal after a number of Championship clubs were hit with transfer embargoes.

It was reported earlier this week that Coventry City were one of ten sides to have been placed under an embargo. The others were Blackburn Rovers, Cardiff City, Stoke, Birmingham City, Huddersfield Town, Luton Town, Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County.

The Sky Blues confirmed they have been placed under an embargo, but called the EFL’S move

“disappointing” and “ridiculous”.

Chief executive David Boddy said earlier this week: “The Government has allowed companies to extend the deadline to file accounts and we chose to do this, extending from the end of February to the end of May.

“It’s ridiculous that the EFL’S regulations on this do not replicate this approach that the Government has taken, especially when they have amended other rules of theirs during the pandemic.”

Kieran Maguire, speaking on the popular Price of Football podcast, shares the Sky Blues’ bewilderment of the situation.

“It’s very weird,” said Maguire, a charted accountant and lecturer at the University of Liverpool. “It’s a classic case of how not to run a story from the EFL’S point of view.

“The EFL says no comment so the clubs were left in limbo. So the likes of Luton and Coventry came out and said it is a transfer embargo, but actually it’s all due to Covid and the emergency legislation which was introduced by the Chancellor.

“Under normal circumstances you’ve got nine months to have your accounts audited and sent in. Rishi Sunak [the Chancellor] said ‘I’m going to give you 12’. All of these clubs said ‘thanks very much, Rishi, we’ll take advantage of that’.

“But nobody appeared to have told the EFL. They said ‘you’ve not given us your accounts within nine months of being audited, therefore you’ve got an automatic embargo in terms of being able to sign players’.

“Surely this is something that could have been avoided. All the EFL had to say was ‘we acknowledge you’ve got an extra three months to publish your accounts so we’re going to give you extra time to submit them’.

“It’s ironic that EFL itself is taking advantage of the extra three months’ delay to publish their own accounts, which is the logical thing to do if they can’t get the auditors in.”