When does our financial penalty / restrictions / enforced business plan end?

[cp]

I probably should know this, but are the restrictions for this year only and will end at the start of next season?

[Sutekh]

As long as no further breaches are made during this season then I believe Reading should be free to pretty much trade as they wish as of 1st July 2023. Obviously though I presume the club will have learnt to balance its books better to remain within ffp going forward from then.

[Nameless]

Definitely end of this season should see us out of special Measures.
But it’s not guaranteed. It will depend on us having hit the financial
Plans we agreed with the EFL. If we haven’t then we can expect a bigger points deduction and tougher restrictions.
That should all be theoretical, we’d pretty much have to set out to deliberately get ourselves in further trouble this season and would probably have to mislead the league as well.
Interesting question will be at what point we can offer new contracts to
Players. Hopefully we can do that before the end of the year based on a 2023-4 business plan.

[Elm Park Kid]

We're going to have to work within the strict FFP requirements for the foreseeable future. If we were to break them then we'll receive the suspended penalty points deductions and the EFL would no doubt clamp down even harder.

We should have more freedom in offering multiple season contracts and picking up the *odd* higher wage player here and there. Though, the way we are operating now is largely going to be the template for future - well, unless we get promoted or are able to find a new revenue stream.

[Nameless]

Suspended points deduction only applies until the end of this season so the threat of that is not ongoing.
But agree that we’ll need to stay within the rules for the foreseeable.
If we transgress again we probably would be hit with the full 12 points, no suspension for cooperating.
We won’t have any restrictions on contracts as long as we stay within FFP.

[tmesis]

Suspended points deduction only applies until the end of this season so the threat of that is not ongoing.
But agree that we’ll need to stay within the rules for the foreseeable.
If we transgress again we probably would be hit with the full 12 points, no suspension for cooperating.
We won’t have any restrictions on contracts as long as we stay within FFP.

Would these be the same rules as everyone else, or stricter rules imposed upon us?

I would hope it's the former.

[Nameless]

I don’t think there are two sets of rules. But inevitably the league will keep those who have breached the rules in the past under closer scrutiny. Which can only be a good thing, last thing we need is to get in trouble again through oversight, error or misunderstanding. As I said I can’t see we’d be given much leeway if we did breach again whereas a club that had not previously been in trouble may well have a suspended punishment (as we’d did on our first offence).
The only thing I can imagine that we might be subject to would be slightly differing reporting requirements. I don’t know how regularly clubs have to provide financial reporting to the league, but I could see them wanting us to prove we remain on track even after the restrictions are lifted.

[Stranded]

I don’t think there are two sets of rules. But inevitably the league will keep those who have breached the rules in the past under closer scrutiny. Which can only be a good thing, last thing we need is to get in trouble again through oversight, error or misunderstanding. As I said I can’t see we’d be given much leeway if we did breach again whereas a club that had not previously been in trouble may well have a suspended punishment (as we’d did on our first offence).
The only thing I can imagine that we might be subject to would be slightly differing reporting requirements. I don’t know how regularly clubs have to provide financial reporting to the league, but I could see them wanting us to prove we remain on track even after the restrictions are lifted.

The restriction that we will still have for probably 2 or 3 years yet is that the losses that got us here have been evened out to be a 13m loss for each completed year, so at least for the next couple of years we'll start an FFP calc at 26m losses, meaning we cannot lose more than 13m. Other clubs naturally may have more wiggle room in any given year. We may well be asked to file half yearly to show we are not at risk of breaching, by even a small amount, again.

So whilst this isn't a punishment restriction we are going to have to be careful on our recruitment plans and sell to finance them where possible. Of course, the question is, will we have many sellable assets come July. It would be very helpful if Genoa go up. Otherwise we'd be looking for decent bids coming in for the likes of Holmes, McIntyre, Ejaria or even one of the younger players like Camara to give us more flexability.