An EFL meeting at Nottingham Forest this week “descended into an inter-club war”, in which one prominent club owner turned on Sheffield Wednesday, Derby County and Aston Villa in an argument over a change of financial regulations, according to the Daily Mail.
It is claimed the trio could also face sanctions for breaching the league’s Profit & Sustainability rules, after Birmingham City were handed a nine-point deduction on Friday.
A source is quoted as having told the newspaper: “There were heated exchanges at Forest this week. The bigger clubs want change, for obvious reasons, but understandably the smaller clubs who are operating within the rules are less than sympathetic.”
Earlier this week, the football finance expert Kieran Maguire told BBC Radio Sheffield he suspects that Wednesday are already under a soft transfer embargo for the second year in a row.
The University of Liverpool lecturer suggested however that the Owls’ situation is not quite as grave as that of Birmingham, who he claimed “show(ed) two fingers to the authorities” by signing the left-back Kristian Pedersen for £2.4 million whilst under a soft embargo of their own.
But in a statement issued by the EFL on Friday, it stated that Pedersen’s transfer was not a contributing factor in Birmingham’s punishment.