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Bolton Wanderers Avoid Transfer Embargo

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Nottingham Forest, Blackburn Rovers and Leeds United have all been handed transfer embargos by the Football League, following breaches of Financial Fair Play Rules.

This comes after a few months of uncertainty among Bolton fans who feared that their club, in £163.8 million of debt, would be punished.

However, it seems that the decisions that Dougie Freedman made, while uninspiring and unambitious, have avoided his former club a fine and a transfer embargo, which would have been terrible for his successor, Neil Lennon who looks to strengthen his depleted squad in the new year.

The Football League released the following statement:

‘Blackburn, Leeds and Forest all exceeded the maximum permitted deviation of £8m – consisting of a maximum adjusted operating loss of £3m plus a further maximum of £5m of shareholder investment – during the 2013/14 playing season. Each club will have the opportunity to have its FFP embargo lifted at the end of the season by demonstrating that it has stayed within the maximum permitted deviation of £6m (£3m operating loss plus £3m shareholder investment) for the 2014/15 season.’

Dougie Freedman and chairman, Phil Gartside had disappointed fans by not persuing big signings such as Craig Dawson and Lukas Jutkiewicz. However, this news will be of relief to Bolton fans.

Though FFP rules are unclear, what we do know if that it makes it very tricky for clubs to ‘speculate to accumulate’.

While we can say that Dougie Freedman did do a very good job with finances, by effectively clearing out most Premier League wage earners, we have to remember that Neil Lennon is currently having success with the team he inherited from Freedman. This is the team that the Scot branded as ‘not good enough’.

Anyway this is good news, for now, for Bolton fans who certainly do have their former manager and current chairman to thank, despite their clear flaws.

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