Luton Town Football Club has ruled out any possibility of ‘financial Armageddon’ or threat to their summer transfer plans after being hit with their first embargo for a decade, due to an EFL administrative issue.
A report in the Daily Mail named the Hatters as one of ten Championship clubs to have been slapped with an embargo, along with Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Cardiff City, Coventry City, Derby County, Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and Stoke City, while Huddersfield Town are believed to have been removed from the list.
The club has this morning revealed this to be true, but they have moved quickly to dispel any long-term threat. Instead, the issue is a coronavirus-led temporary accounting anomaly brought about by the EFL’s inability to adjust to a Companies House deadline extension on submission of accounts.
A statement on the Hatters website read: ‘In response to an article published by a newspaper this morning, Luton Town Football Club has issued the following response:
‘Our first embargo for a decade is simply an anomaly brought about by an unsynchronised timing of financial reports due to the pandemic.
‘The Club’s 2019/20 accounts, whilst finalised, have yet to be signed off by our auditors which will be done well before the statutory deadline.
‘Given the exceptionally difficult operating environment caused by the pandemic the requirement to continue to play “behind closed doors”, financial forecasts have rightly been scrutinised much more thoroughly and Companies House provided an extension of the statutory filing deadline to June to create sufficient time to complete this additional work accurately. Indeed, the club will publish unqualified accounts before the end of April.
‘However, EFL rules couldn’t be adjusted to meet the Companies House extension and require that signed accounts still needed to be submitted in March, which the club was unable to achieve. The matter will be resolved as our auditors conclude the report in the next couple of weeks.
‘We would like to reassure all of our supporters that this situation will not affect any of the Club’s plans for the summer transfer window, which does not open until the end of the current season, and makes no difference to the day-to-day running of the Club currently.
‘There is certainly no ‘financial Armageddon’, as the article’s headline sensationally claims, at Kenilworth Road.’
A statement from Coventry City Chief Executive, Dave Boddy, was more critical of the the league, saying: “Its disappointing that the EFL have chosen to do this.
“The governement has allowed companies to extend the dealine to file accounts and we chose to do this, extending from the end of February to the end of May.
“It’s ridiculous that the EFL’s regulations on this do not replicate this approach that the government has taken, espeically when they have amended other rules of theirs during the pandemic.
“The EFL’s imposition of this does not have any effect on us, but it is disappointing nonetheless that they have taken this approach to to take action against clubs who are simply doing what the government is allowing us to do.”
storm in a teacup. this isn’t really an embargo if the accounts are done by the end of May as the window won’t open till sometime in June. as the accounts are with auditors that’s low risk.
i get the frustration. but given the inadequacies of the efl, if they’d made a change this time you can guarantee some of the clubs that have already played fast and loose with the rules in recent years (and some others) would be claiming exceptional circumstances every year. the efl should be capable of managing that, but they’re not.