The Sheffield Wednesday manager Garry Monk has told the club’s official Facebook account he does not believe that a points deduction would affect plans to sign some of the Owls’ key players to new contracts.
Cameron Dawson has already agreed fresh terms at Hillsborough while Morgan Fox and Steven Fletcher are currently in talks.
Fletcher, in particular, is thought to be one of Wednesday’s highest earners and the Owls could struggle to carry his wages into League One, should the English Football League impose a harsher sanction.
It has been speculated that a deduction of up to 21 points is possible after the club was charged with misconduct relating to the organisation’s Profit & Sustainability rules.
But, after claiming that both Wednesday and Fletcher are hopeful of a positive conclusion, Monk said of the punishment threat: “It shouldn’t affect anything because at the end of the day there’s a process in place. You can’t do everything at once.
“The club have been spoken to and I’ve given my thoughts on some of the players to start that process.
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“So they’ve started contract negotiations.
“That should be, from our point of view, regardless of whether there’s an impending points deduction (or not).
“That’s just something that we want to do as a club and the feedback from the players is they want to do it as well, so far.
“Hopefully, we can get those tied up and then move on to some of the others.”
As well as Fox and Fletcher, Joe Wildsmith, Matt Penney, Joey Pelupessy, Sam Hutchinson, Kieran Lee, Fernando Forestieri, Atdhe Nuhiu and Sam Winnall are all out of contract at Wednesday this summer.
And it remains to be seen which of the others, if any, could be offered new deals.
Of those, only Pelupessy, Lee, Forestieri and Nuhiu have played regularly under Monk in recent weeks – though Penney is currently on loan to St Pauli.