🤯 Survival was sealed! English club sweating again after points docked

🤯 Survival was sealed! English club sweating again after points docked

After the commanding 3-0 win over Watford on Tuesday, English second-tier side West Bromwich Albion had already celebrated securing survival, as the gap to the relegation places had grown to eight points with only two matches remaining.

But the apparent rescue turned out to be an illusion: as the English Football Association announced on Friday evening, the “Baggies” have been docked two points with immediate effect for breaches of Financial Fair Play. Over the past three years, the club exceeded the permitted debt limit of €200 million. As a result, West Brom drop from 18th to 20th in the table.

That suddenly makes relegation to the third tier a mathematical possibility again. The cushion to a direct relegation spot is still comfortable, but in football you never know. For that to happen, they would have to lose both remaining games against Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday, while Oxford would need to win both of their matches and Charlton would have to pick up at least one point.

Meanwhile, the club is considering legal action and expressed irritation at the severity of the punishment in an official statement: “West Bromwich Albion has not been informed of the exact extent of the breach, other than that it is below £2 million. This therefore represents the smallest breach of the financial rules ever identified in the Championship and the Premier League.” It continued: “For now, we will settle this on the pitch.”

Head coach James Morrison also remained calm despite the unrest and trusts in his squad’s mentality: “I spoke to the players today and reminded them that we want to finish the season as strongly as possible. I’m sure I wouldn’t even have had to remind them of that. After all, they’re professionals.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.