Birmingham braced for 12-point deduction

BIRMINGHAM CITY face a devastating 12-point deduction that will send them plummeting down the Championship table when they appear at a Football League hearing this week. Lawyers representing both the club and the EFL are due to appear before a disciplinary panel, with the hearing scheduled to begin at an undisclosed location today. While the verdict will ultimately be delivered by the panel, sources at the EFL fully expect the club to be heavily sanctioned for what they regard as serious breaches of Financial Fair Play regulations. Garry Monk’s side are 13th in the Championship table with a 14-point cushion between themselves and the relegation places. But the EFL are pushing for at least a 12-point deduction, as well as a transfer ban, in what would be the most severe punishment since Leeds United were docked 15 points in 2007. Only this week, Birmingham became the

first club in more than a decade to be charged by the FA over a violent attack by a fan on a player, following the shocking incident involving Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish. But the club’s Championship status will come under threat this week when the panel review the apparent financial chaos at St Andrew’s. A 12-point loss would leave the club just two points above the relegation zone. In January the publication of Birmingham’s annual accounts revealed a loss of £37.5million in the 12 months to the end of June 2018, in part due to a massive increase in wages from £22m to £38m during the managerial tenures of Gianfranco Zola and Harry Redknapp. It was reported that the club’s wage-to-turnover ratio was £202 spent for every £100 brought in. The same accounts showed the club owed £73m to parent company Birmingham Sports Holdings, with net liabilities of £55m. Last season, the club were hit with a transfer embargo after exceeding the permitted losses of £39m in a three-year period, but then signed Danish full back Kristian Pedersen from Union Berlin for £2m in June 2018. The EFL said they were ‘exceptionally disappointed’ the club had ignored the embargo to sign the Under 21 international, initially refusing to register him. Two days before the start of this season, ‘after consideration of the legal position between the club, player and EFL’ Pedersen’s registration was accepted.