He says the club faces potential points deductions due to breaches of Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

The Premier League is likely to charge them for excessive losses in the three years ending June 30, 2024, which could lead to a points deduction applied by the EFL in the Championship.

A previous loophole that Leicester exploited to avoid sanctions has been closed, increasing the risk of penalties.

Additionally, their financial situation remains precarious, with high wages and limited player sales, potentially leading to further PSR breaches for the 2024/25 season.

This could result in multiple points deductions, including one from the Premier League for past breaches and another from the EFL for current financial issues, with aggravating factors possibly worsening the penalty due to perceived non-cooperation.

The severity of the punishment depends on their 2024/25 accounts and ongoing regulatory proceedings.

“It’s fair to say…” 🤔

“Leicester City have pissed off a lot of football authorities” 😳

“They could have TWO points deductions this season” 🤯@KieranMaguire says Leicester maybe about to find themselves in a lot of hot water…👇

🔗 https://t.co/3vX06CB4So#LCFC pic.twitter.com/8dbzeAilHN

— Second Tier podcast (@secondtierpod) July 1, 2025

: Another club who seems to be in a lot of bother, Kieran, is Leicester City. How the mighty have fallen. They’re facing a potential points deduction for breaching PSR rules the last time they’re in the Championship, and it’s it’s quite a complicated case, Kieran. But in the most simplistic terms possible, do you think Leicester will get a points deduction or not if I were to ask you to look in your big crystal ball?

: Well, they’re already up on a charge or they’re pretty certain to be on a charge from the Premier League for the losses that they made for the three years ended the 30th June 2024. And what we’ve seen in the last two or three months is that, as you may be aware, Ryan, there’s not much love lost between the EFL and the Premier League, especially when it comes to the distribution of money. But they have managed to get around the table. And they, historically, it used to be, that if you were given a points deduction by the EFL that you’ve just been promoted, the Premier League would not apply it and vice versa. That relationship no longer exists. That caveat no longer exists. So Leicester are up effectively up on the charge, going to be up on the charge from the Premier League, which could result in a point deduction given by the Premier League, which then gets supplied by the EFL. Leicester City then have to prepare their accounts for the three years to the 30th June 2025. And the loophole which existed, which was taken advantage of by Leicester City Football Club where thanks to the genius of their lawyer, Nick DeMarco, they managed to prove that they were in neither the Premier League nor the EFL at the 30th June 2023, and therefore avoided sanction from both of those organisations. Well, that loophole has been tightened up. So so they won’t be able to benefit from that. So they could be on a second set of charges when they they send off their results to the the EFL. And I think they have to be in by the March 1st. So they could have already had a point deduction from the Premier League, and then the EFL say, we need to have a little bit of chat because you were still losing money. It was very noticeable in the Premier League last season that Lester were relying on loan signings. Yes, they sacked Steve Cooper, but they probably would have sacked Van Nistelrooy during the season as well. I don’t think they could afford to. Such was the precarious nation of their finances. There are stories doing the rounds. And again, here we have to say, be very cautious because the credibility of these stories has to be called into question that the owners themselves are not in as strong a financial position as perhaps they were ten years ago. And therefore, the ability of the owners to subsidise the club in the Championship will be impacted. And therefore, you know, selling off the prize assets of the clubs in terms of players, could be, a big driver for Leicester City over the course of the summer.

: It sounds like they have been in a bit of danger of breaching it this past season as well. Looking ahead to the next window, considering they’ll still have a pretty big wage bill, could they be in danger of breaching PSR again this coming season?

: It, well, for 25/26, yeah, who knows? I’m I’m more concerned about 24/25 where, yeah, my understanding is that they are going to be in a very, very weak position going into the end of last season. I’m amazed that they’ve not been selling players, before the 30th of June. That could be due to two reasons. It could be due to the fact that the players might not want to leave, or it could be that they’ve not got players that people are interested in as far as the Premier League is concerned because, again, looking at my spreadsheet here, the last time Leicester City were in the Premier League, they were relegated with a with a squad where the average wage was 92 grand a week. Well, who’s gonna pick up players on those type of salaries?

: Yeah. Fair bit of money though, isn’t it? But here’s my question now, which I’m hoping you’ll be able to provide some clarity on, but maybe even you won’t know. If Leicester do get charged for breaching PSR last season and they don’t go back to the Premier League for the foreseeable future, because in my expert opinion, I think that squad’s a lot weaker this time around than it was last time around. So if we don’t see them back in the Premier League, will they get charged or will they just not actually be affected? Because as you mentioned, the Premier League and the EFL are completely different entities.

: Yes. But that issue has been resolved to a certain extent by a change in the constitution of both the Premier League and the EFL. So if the Premier League charge Leicester City for the losses that they made for the three years ended the 30th June 2024, and they say, well, we think you should have a points deduction, the EFL can now say, we’ll apply it on your behalf. And how big is that points deduction? I think it’s fair to say that Leicester City have pissed off a lot of football regulatory authorities, which is fine provided you’re winning your cases. When it comes to losing your cases, certainly, under the EFL rules, and I think under the Premier League rules, you start off with a tariff of a six point deduction. And then based on just how much over the limit of the PSR total you are it’s effect it could be I think in the EFL, it’s it’s an extra one point for every one and a half million. I think in the Premier League, it might be an extra one point deduction for every 5million over the limit. And then we have something called aggravating and mitigating factors. Now if we take a look at the points deduction that was given to Birmingham City a couple of years ago, Birmingham City self reported themselves to the EFL. They’ve got it. We signed a player. We realised. We haven’t done the sums.

: Hands up, Sorry, guys. We fucked up.

: Yeah. And and to be fair to the EFL, they said, we’ll knock two points off your charge.

: It’s a pleading guilty for a crime.

: That’s right. If you’ve committed a crime and you go to a police station and you say, look, I’ve done something wrong, I’m going to plead guilty, that will be taken into consideration when you’re when you’re standing in front of the beak. Whereas Leicester City’s approach, which has been, I think, fair to say quite contrarian, it’s no we weren’t part of the Premier League. We weren’t part of the EFL. Now they they have managed to prove that that was the case. But if you’ve upset somebody, you know, it’s a bit like if you if you’ve done a deliberate handball and you’ve got away with it and you’ve got a centre half who’s a bit angsty, you know that the next time that centre half comes in contact with you, he’s gonna give you a good kicking. So, yeah, there could be aggravating factors, which is where there has not been cooperation with the regulatory authorities. Now could a commission take the view that Leicester’s approach has been one of effectively noncooperation? We have to wait and see it. And, again, we have to stress, we’ve not seen the evidence which have been put forward. And, also, Leicester City have not been charged by the EFL, and we don’t know what’s happening in terms of their relationship with the Premier League.

: So I may be completely misreading this the wrong way, but could there be a possibility that Leicester have points deductions for the next three seasons? So one for the Championship, the last time they were in it, then one for pissing off the Premier League the season afterwards, and then maybe one if they’re also breaching PSR this coming season. Does that make sense?

: Yeah. In fact, they could have two points deductions in 25/26. One from the Premier League for the year that they were promoted and one from the EFL when they submit their 24/25 accounts. So those two could be added together. To a certain extent, Leicester City, who have been quite smart in the way that they dealt with things, if I was them, I would have I would have tried to arrange the plea bargain with the Premier League last season and say, yeah, We did spend too much money. Yes. We are gonna plead guilty. Yes. Please give us a point deduction, because let’s face it. They were relegated in February. They were relegated in November. If if but, you know, in theory, they could have turned things out. Yeah. Just looking at that side, it was never a side that was going to survive as far as the the Premier League was concerned. And if they’d taken, you know, an 8, 10, 12 deduction in the Premier League season, I think they’d probably still finished above Southampton. But they would have finished 19th instead of 18th. I ask you this, Ryan. Who cares?

: Who does care?

: Who does? Ipswich would have got an extra 3 and a half million pounds in prize money. Leicester would have lost 3 and a half million. But what they potentially face this season is not one, but two points deductions.

: Wow. Yeah. I knew they were facing eight points deduction, and we we probably should move on very shortly. But I this sounds like a lot more of a severe punishment than I was expecting with Leicester because it sounds like they may get abs the the book properly thrown at them.

: Yes. And and we don’t know what’s happened in the 24/25 accounts. We have to be we have to be absolutely straight about that. And they were noticeable by their lack of spending last season, and they had to choose the loan market and so on. And also some players, you know, Jamie Vardy is effectively retired. Some of the loan players have gone back to their host clubs. There will be a significant reduction in the wage bill as a result of that. Whether that’s enough, we’ll have to wait and see.