League One Rivals Deducted 10 Points

Crewe’s League One rivals Rotherham will begin the 2006/07 campaign on minus 10 points. The club have entered into administration to avoid the only other alternative of liquidation, which would have seen them go out of business. Under the current rules, this means that Rotherham must be penalised with a 10 point deduction, as happened with Wrexham in the 2004/05 season. Although it is never nice to see a football club go out of business, it appears that some clubs are finally having to face the consequences of financial mismanagement. Crewe were offered a close-up example of this mismanagement last summer, when Rotherham offered Colin Murdock a lucrative two-year deal to move to Millmoor. It is now obvious that Rotherham could never really afford to offer the wages they did, though many Crewe fans were simply relieved to see Murdock leave. Furthermore, as many teams who are relegated struggle in their first season in League One, Crewe fans won’t be unhappy to already have a 10 point advantage over one of their League One rivals.

Rotherham are actually considering an appeal, though it seems highly unlikely that any such appeal would prove successful. Whilst Rotherham may be aggrieved to have been deducted 10 points, the sanctions for financial mismanagement are far greater in other European countries. For example, French clubs who find themselves in large debts will be automatically relegated to a lower division, with a similar system in place in Italy, which has seen big teams such as Fiorentina automatically relegated by three divisions as a consequence of their debts.