West Bromwich Albion have been charged with a breach of the EFL's Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR), which could potentially result in a fine or even a points deduction. In response, West Brom said that they “acknowledged media reports” on this subject, but added, “The club considers that it has fully complied with the P&S rules. The club will continue to co-operate with the EFL’s club financial reporting unit and looks forward to resolving this matter.” However, as the old saying has it, “There’s no smoke without fire.” Indeed, the club’s accounts had already hinted at an issue, albeit in a fairly oblique manner, “The club intends to present a compliant PSR submission to the EFL by 31 December 2025. This will be ratified by the EFL after the approval of the financial statements. The group are not able to estimate or predict any impact of non-compliance should the EFL fail to ratify the club’s submission.” Furthermore, former president Andrew Nestor had made several references to West Brom’s PSR challenges in a lengthy statement in December. Nestor pointed out, “Following the takeover, we were aware that the club’s parent company West Bromwich Albion Group Limited was on an unchangeable path to a £37.6m loss in 2023/24 that would impact our P&S position over a three-year period. To put that into context, the EFL’s P&S loss threshold for clubs at the time was £39m over a three-year period.” He added, “Without taking swift action, this inherited P&S deficit could have put the club on course to produce one of the largest financial breaches in EFL history. The prospect of transfer embargoes and points deductions since takeover during both summer 2024 and 2025 were genuine concerns.” There was more, “The club faced a significant P&S deficit heading into summer 2024 and an even larger deficit heading into summer 2025. In each of these seasons, we have worked as close to our P&S limits as we responsibly can to both resolve P&S overruns and make investments in key players with long-term value.” Finally, the importance of the issues was recognised by the appointment of “a Senior Director of Football Finance focused specifically on ensuring financial compliance and best practices”. EFL guidelines state that any punishment for a PSR breach must be applied in the campaign after it took place, which in West Brom’s case would mean this season. At the risk of stating the obvious, a points deduction would not be welcome, but especially so for West Brom, who are currently in the middle of a relegation battle in 20th place, only five points ahead of Oxford United. If they do go down, this would be only the second time in their history that West Brom had been in England’s third tier. The club has spent many season’s in the Premier League with their most recent relegation taking place in 2020/21. Since then, they have finished between 5th and 10th in the Championship, getting close to promotion in 2023/24, when they reached the play-offs. This underlines the extent of the decline this season, so the threat of a points deduction could not have come at a worse time. Little wonder that the club said, “Albion understands the concerns of supporters and thanks fans for their unwavering support of the team, whose success on the pitch during the final four games of the season remains our absolute priority.” It wasn’t meant to be this way after the club was acquired in February 2024 by Bilkul Football