Reading deducted six points and in relegation danger after breaching rules

Reading have been deducted six points with immediate effect over a historical breach of the EFL’s profitability and sustainability limits. It leaves the club, who have taken two points from their past six matches, one point above the relegation zone.

The EFL said Reading had “failed to comply with the budget restrictions imposed, following a previous breach of the EFL’s profitability and sustainability rules. The points deduction is an activation of a suspended six-point penalty, which was set out in the terms of an agreed decision between Reading and the EFL in November 2021.”

The sanction relates to the club’s failure to meet the terms of a business plan agreed after the breach of the profit and sustainability limits in 2021. The initial breach carried a six-point penalty with a further six points suspended until this season.

Reading said: “Despite radical changes implemented at first-team level and right across the structure of the business to its very core – and a rigid adherence to a strict league-monitored wage structure and transfer embargo – the club accepts that it has not sufficiently satisfied certain elements of the planned budget and that, as a result, the independent club financial review panel has been unable to ratify that the club has met its forecast for compliance.”

Reading, who are owned by the Chinese businessman Dai Yongge, said “every reasonable effort has been made to construct a competitive squad of players whilst avoiding further punishment. However, despite the substantial progress we have undeniably made and the lessons that have indeed been learned, as promised, we accept that the situation was never going to be easily or quickly fixed.”