The EFL guideline that could hand West Brom points deduction this season | OneFootball

West Bromwich Albion's end of season could be thrown into chaos, if a points deduction is awarded against them over PSR breaches.

West Bromwich Albion could be set for a shock points deduction, right at the end of an already disappointing Championship season.

To say that 2025-26 has been a bit of a disappointment for West Bromwich Albion would be something of an understatement. The Baggies remain just above the division's relegation places, with Ryan Mason and Eric Ramsey having both been hired and fired, and James Morrison now trying to keep them in the second tier for another season.

Although they remain in deep trouble near the bottom of the table, recent form has seen something of an improvement in their fortunes. Albion remain unbeaten under Morrison after seven matches, a figure which contrasts sharply with the 11-game winless run that they'd been on prior to his arrival in the managerial hot seat at The Hawthorns.

They have, however, only won two of those seven, drawing the other five, meaning that they remain just two points above the bottom three with four games to play, and things could yet get worse for them, with the news that they could be deducted up to six points by the EFL over a breach of financial rules.

West Bromwich Albion have fallen foul of the EFL's Profit & Sustainability Rules

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, John Percy confirmed that West Bromwich Albion have been charged with a breach of Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR). The club published their accounts for the 2024-25 season in March, and these confirmed a loss of just over £17 million.

This was a reduction on the £31 million that the club had lost a year earlier, but PSR is calculated on the basis of a three-year rolling score, and Albion's three-year score since 2022 now stands at £55.6 million, some way above the allowable losses for such a period of £39 million.

The problem for West Bromwich Albion is that EFL rules require any punishment for a breach of PSR to come the following season. This means that, even though West Brom only have four games of their 2025-26 season left to play, any punishment has to be applied this season. It's unconfirmed that the club will definitely receive a points deduction, as a transfer embargo or fine could also be punishments under such circumstances.

A 6-point deduction for West Brom could plunge the end of their season into chaos

Were West Brom to be hit with the worst-case outcome in this scenario, the big beneficiaries would be the other clubs near the bottom of the Championship, Portsmouth, Oxford United and Leicester City. A six-point deduction would drop Albion to 23rd place in the table, with only the already-doomed Sheffield Wednesday below them.

There will be much conjecture about what's "fair" and what isn't, so far as this matter is concerned, and there are several ways in which to look at this. It's reasonable to argue that points deductions shouldn't be awarded against anyone at this late stage of the season, because of the distorting effect that they can have on either the top or the bottom of a league table.

The counter-argument to this is that the EFL rules are very clear, that such a punishment has to be delivered in the season following a breach. Leicester City are in the position in which they find themselves due to a six-point deduction, and their appeal against that deduction was recently thrown out, with the deduction being upheld.

It's not difficult to see from the accounts where one of the key problems was with the club's finances throughout the 2024-25 season. The club's Wages to Turnover Ratio for that season was 122%, meaning that for every £1 the club brought in throughout the season, £1.22 was being spent on wages alone.

That is clearly a hopelessly unsustainable position (although it's also not an uncommon one across the Premier League and the EFL), and one which dovetails with the end of Premier League parachute payments, which came about at the end of the 2023-24 season.

Albion's WTR percentage was manageable while those parachute payments were being received, but the figure jumped from 81% for the 2022-23 season to 152% the following season, before falling back to 122% last time around. The club reduced its wage bill from £21.354 million in 2022-23 to £17.242 million for 2024-25, but income has also fallen sharply over the same period.

It should be added that the EFL figures aren't final figures. The club are entitled to permitted add-backs, such as expenditure towards women’s football, community development and the academy, and these are exempt from these calculations. The club have been reported to be seeking to get any punishment put back to the 2026-27 season, though what the grounds for the EFL doing so - in contravention of their own rules - remains unknown.

The EFL will have to reach a decision quickly, though, since the final round of fixtures are due to be played on the 2nd May, with the play-offs due to start less than a week later. On that final weekend, West Bromwich Albion are away to Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough. It is to be hoped that everybody near the foot of the Championship table will know who needs to do what to survive for another season by then.