Nottingham Forest have appealed against their four-point deduction for breaching Premier League profit and sustainability rules, the club has confirmed.
An independent commission found Forest’s losses to 2022-23 breached the threshold of £61m (Sh8bn) by £34.5m (Sh4.5bn).
The loss of points has placed Forest in the relegation zone (18th place), one point behind Luton Town.
Forest said in a statement they would not be making any further comment. They are the second top-flight team to be penalised for PSR breaches after Everton lost 10 points in November, which was reduced to six on appeal.
Last week, Forest said they were “extremely disappointed” with the decision, which they said “raises issues of concern for all aspirant clubs”.
Premier League clubs can lose £105m (Sh13.8bn) over three seasons — £35m (Sh4.6bn) per campaign — but Forest’s maximum loss was only permitted to be £61m (Sh8bn) because they spent two years of the assessment period in the Championship.
Forest were set to be hit with a six-point deduction — three points for the initial breach and a further three for the size of the breach — but their “early plea” and “cooperation” meant that was reduced to four points.
The league’s rules state any appeals process should “conclude no later than and if possible some time before 24 May” — five days after the season finishes.
Forest, who were charged in January, won promotion from the second tier in 2022 and proceeded to sign a British-record 22 new players that summer, also bringing in five players on loan. Their net transfer spend over the 2022-23 season was £142.8m (Sh18.8bn).
They lost an average of £3m (Sh395m) across 2020 and 2021 with a further £40m (Sh5.2bn) loss in 2022 and £52m (Sh6.8bn) in 2023, amounting to a total of £95m (Sh12.5bn).
