Town MD Ian Milne believes points deductions for breaking the Championship's Financial Fair Play rules (FFP) might be the only way for some clubs to take the regulations seriously. In his programme interview at the end of the season Blues owner Marcus Evans described the situation with FFP as appearing to be “a total farce” and Milne agrees.

While the Blues have kept to FFP a number of other clubs have recorded significantly higher losses than those permitted by the rules.

Currently clubs whose losses exceed the limits who are still in the Championship are subject to transfer embargoes, while those that have been promoted to the Premier League are fined.

The likes of Blackburn, Fulham, Bolton and Nottingham Forest have all faced embargoes, while Bournemouth were recently fined £7.6 million.

QPR’s losses during the 2013/14 season were such that they could have been facing a £58 million fine but they began legal proceedings against the Football League last May.

“There are a lot of clubs who are playing to the FFP rules and it’s farcical that the Football League aren’t making an example of a number of clubs, particularly QPR,” Milne said.

“I think that it is a concern that they haven’t come out with a decision on QPR, clearly it makes you think whether QPR have threatened to invalidate the rules, which, if that is the case, there’s a problem with all the Football League rules. That’s part of the issue for us, those things are just farcical.”

Regarding QPR’s challenge, Milne says he’s not sure of the current situation.

“I wish I knew,” he added. “I tried to get more out of Lee Hoos, who is the chief executive of QPR, and the most I could get out of him was that he seemed to be saying that they were challenging the rules or that’s where they were going, but nothing more.

“It is very frustrating. As we know, the Football League is still pushing out fines and embargoes and all the rest of it but it seems a little bit all over the place and I can’t say anything better than Marcus, it’s farcical. It’s very frustrating."

Equally frustrating must be operating in an environment when you're fully aware that a number of clubs are clearly not keeping to the rules.

“It is," Milne continued. "But it is possible to still beat those teams. I’m not just saying it. With the right manager and the right squad we would have had [but for injuries], and we still will have, a good look into those six places.”

Milne believes the fines have been ineffective, given the huge sums clubs receive once promoted to the Premier League.

“I think [embargoes] have probably hurt one or two teams, they have meant they’ve not progressed,” he continued.

“But the fines may not and maybe it has got to be points deductions for clubs to take it seriously. They’ve got an advantage. ‘Financial doping’ you called it. Well put.”

Milne says Blues owner Evans, like those in charge of other Championship clubs, has a limit on how much he is willing to pay out with Town again set to make a loss during 2015/16.

“I think it’s also important to note that like you or me, every owner in the Championship each has a budget that they’re prepared to spend on it,” Milne added.

“Some of their budgets are higher, they go up and down, or remain at the same level. I think Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough has been consistently spending a lot of money, he’s a very nice guy and good luck to him now he’s gone up.

“But he’s had to consistently put a lot of money, and I mean a lot of money, into Middlesbrough and it’s paid off this season for them.

“At the end of the day it’s up to Marcus how much he wants to put into it, just as it’s up to us how much case we’ve got to spend on things from day to day.

“But again, our salary bill [is up 25 per cent over the last two seasons and 15 per cent over the last season]. It’s FFP and how much the owner wants to spend on a club and we think that’s a decent amount at the moment.

“Marcus is determined to stay within FFP but how they spend the money is up to him and Mick.”

Photo: ITFC

Photo: Action Images

ElderGrizzly added 11:27 - May 20 Embargoes have hurt every club if they've stayed down in this division and all have either been relegated (Bolton) or are struggling to make the top half. The big issue is clubs who go up after breaking the rules. That's where it is a farce.
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Jimmy86 added 11:27 - May 20 So if it's as farcical as you and now Marcus Evans have said it is and has proved to be utterly toothless, why is Evans still so insistant on staying within it?? If you end up getting promoted and get the money that comes with that, tv deal, full house every week, sponsorship etc a fine of £7.6 million pales into insignificance.
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Bluebell added 11:27 - May 20 I completely agree. FFP was ridiculous in the first place as a lot of teams didn't stick to it knowing they could afford to pay fines if it came to that. I have to laugh at Derby though with all the money they have spent. They have some very hefty wages to pay out too. I hope, for their sake, the players have clauses in their contracts saying if they didn't go up, they would forfeit some of their wages. I doubt it though. Taking points off at the beginning of the season would make a lot of difference to the clubs spending to get promoted.

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ThatMuhrenCross added 12:24 - May 20 I'd quite like to see Championship clubs refusing to play against QPR next season. If no club was willing to give them a game, I think it would almost certainly force the Football League to take action.
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BlueandTruesince82 added 12:26 - May 20 I would suggest we are sticking to FF P because they are the rules, facical or not. Ipswich is a proper club that shouldn't have to cheat it's way to success. As I have been saying since FFP appeard football is eating itself. Look at the propsed changes to the FL structure (whilst they might be good for town) imagine the impact of ending promotion to and relegation from the FL will have on small teams, it will give them nothing to strive for and remove ambition and we will see the end of many football clubs. IF it does happen how long after that will it be before the PL.owners club try and eliminate relegation there too in a desperate bid to protect the value of their assets. Again fans must do more to hold footballing authorities to account but instead of doing that we have a go at the man the pumps millions of pounds into a loss making concern to keep it afloat every year. The club never asked for FFP and Evans funded managers heavily before they arrived. These are facts. We must hold football to account and demand action from the rule makers

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TR11BLU added 12:36 - May 20 @Blueandtrue82 Very well said, and although promotion to/from FL is not (I believe) part of the new proposals, the PL closing its doors will inevitably happen. That, however, will be the beginning of the end of competition for those clubs.
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Bluetone added 12:42 - May 20 The bigger farce is the size of the so-called parachute payments.
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BlueandTruesince82 added 12:59 - May 20 Agreed Bluetone. Norwich will be rewarded for their failure this year with 90 million quid, to say this skews the playing field in the championship is an understatement. Add to that big clubs like Villa comming down and it's only getting tougher. I LOVE football as we all do but it's a mess, to much money not finding it's way where it should, to many execs who have no real football experience running the game and creating laws, FIFA? Corrupt, UEFA? Corrupt, FA being run by a bunch of people who haven't kicked a ball in anger. They create rules and don't stock to them, they enshrine penalties in governance and then fail to enforce them all which results in cheaters prospering which is plainly wrong. Football buys it's head in the ground. EVERY club that has stuck to FFP throughout the land and every.supporter of them should be demanding the FA/FL/UEAFA/FIFA or whoevers resposneabilty it is to enforce the full fine upon QPR, IE £58 million pounds, this would likely result in a fire sale of assets both playing and non and possible the liquidation of the club. I think that is a lesson that all football clubs would learn from

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casanovacrow added 13:02 - May 20 financial fair play + massive parachute payments = no financial fair play
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jas0999 added 17:42 - May 20 Milne can go on about this as much as he likes, but in reality we are the only championship club and just a handful of clubs taking it seriously. That's been he cae for some time. The rule needs to be scrapped otherwise other clubs won't be able yo compete with those coming down with parachute payments. For me, the spending on fees should be capped depending upon which division you are in.

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Seasider added 18:07 - May 20 Points deduction is the answer,cannot understand why this sanction is not being used.
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MacMan added 21:54 - May 20 The Football League have been shown to be as big a bunch of spineless, useless, incompetent fools it's our misfortune to have running the game. If you want to see how to implement FFP look at the sanctions placed on the Paramata Eels in rugby. Loss of points, sacking of individuals and massive fines. Either have FFP and enforce it or do away with it, admit you failed and resign.

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Bob7881 added 07:46 - May 21 Lets Face it money talks its corrupted football to its core. Spending multi Millions on overated players is the choice of the super rich i can never see a situation when FIFA, UEFA etc really want to put a stop to it. Evans came in a blaze of Glory spent a lot of money got his fingers burnt simple as that. ITFC was an investment that has gone badly wrong. All this talk of hitting big spenders is a waste of time there is no real will at the top to change it. I would suggest Milne should concentrate on optimising ITFC's revenues and stop worring about other clubs.

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Supershred added 09:40 - May 21 ITFC are right to play within the rules. Minor digressions can be accepted with clubs playing right up against the budget line but the blatant deviations from FFP must be dealt with harshly. I was wondering what actually happened to the fines collected? If they were distributed to the clubs operating within FFP, on a proportionate basis such as more money was given to those well under the limit than those close to it, this might encourage low spending rather than high spending. A consequential benefit of this would be more reliance on home grown talent, academies etc.

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HarryS_H added 11:18 - May 21 In regard to parachute payments just look at the championship this year, 2 of the 3 relegated teams are looking likely to go up and the other should be receiving a very hefty fine... Just shows the elite clubs are trying to protect them selves from the likes of us becoming part of their group...
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Bob7881 added 16:50 - May 21 HarryS_H could not agree morei think Newcastle and Villa coming down has messed it up. Im sure if there was a situation where the likes of Bournmouth, Palace, Stoke that type of size club and Yer Newcastles Leeds and Villa that size clubs were all in the Prem i think the door will shut. Then the next step will be the Big Four into a european league. As Much as i think its great to see Leicester win the Prem im sure they are not wanted at the top table but still good for them they have give a shot in the arm for the little clubs.

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