Once Leicester City’s appeal against the Premier League was successful, they were able to identify a loophole in the regulations.
According to financial expert Stefan Borson, who spoke with Football Insider exclusively, the appeal board’s ruling validates the governing body’s regulations were unequivocal in the wrong sense.
Leicester were charged in March with a breach of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) for 2022-23 after reporting losses of £89.7million for that year alone, with top-flight sides only permitted to lose £105million over a rolling three-year period.
But they argued they were no longer a Premier League club when they submitted their accounts on 30 June last year following their relegation to the Championship.
In July, an impartial panel rejected such allegations and declared that the Premier League may bring charges against them.
However, Leicester announced on September 3rd that their appeal against that decision was successful. As a result, they will not lose any points for their 2022–2023 infraction.
In its ruling, the independent panel said the PSR rules “are, in relevant parts, far from well drafted”, while the Premier League admitted it was “surprised and disappointed” by the decision.
Leicester City and Premier League faced high-quality legal panel
But Borson insisted the governing body shouldn’t be surprised by the panel’s analysis or suggest it is in some way wrong.
“I guess the surprise was that there was an appeal happening at all,” Borson told Football Insider.
“There was no press around it, so it did somewhat come out of the blue.
“When you read the appeal board’s decision, it seems very logical and it was a very high-quality appeal board.
“The people who were on that panel, two of them are former Court of Appeal judges. It was a very high-quality legal panel. The other individual who was on the panel was a KC, so it was a three-lawyer panel.
“Despite the announcement from the Premier League about how disappointed they were, I don’t think they can claim that it’s a perverse decision in some way from a legal perspective.
“It’s very hard to imagine a higher quality set of barristers in that room. You had Nick De Marco acting for Leicester, the Premier League had both a KC and a junior barrister, and you had a three-man appeal board that was of the highest quality.
“I think it would be wrong for anyone to be surprised or to say that the analysis that was given by that panel was in some way wrong.
“The reality is the consequence of their decision is that it confirms the Premier League’s rules on this point were actually unambiguous, but unambiguous in the wrong way, so Leicester have succeeded to find a gap in the rules.”
