Sheffield Wednesday: EFL wanted to apply 12-point deduction in 2019-20 season

Owner Dejphon Chansiri bought Sheffield Wednesday in 2015

The EFL wanted to apply Sheffield Wednesday's 12-point deduction for breaching financial rules to the 2019-20 season, which would have relegated the club to League One, but an independent panel prevented it.

The three-man commission that heard the case against Wednesday in June pointed to the EFL's pursuit of a second charge against the club of deliberately concealing information around its ground sale - subsequently dismissed - as being key to the ultimate timing of the sanction.

That timing has caused fury at relegated Charlton Athletic, who would have survived had the penalty applied for the season just concluded rather than the 2020-21 campaign.

Wednesday were found guilty of breaching financial protocols after they included the sale of their Hillsborough ground to chairman Dejphon Chansiri in their 2018-19 accounts when it was proved to have taken place afterwards.

They were cleared of a second charge of not acting in good faith.

The South Yorkshire club confirmed after the release of the written reasons that they will appeal.

In two documents, totalling 51 pages, released by the EFL on Monday, the commission said a number of factors lay behind its decision, including the EFL's failure to push for a speedy sanction in a similar case involving Derby County and the fact Wednesday's squad had been reduced through some players refusing to play beyond the end of their contract on 30 June, therefore weakening it on the run-in.

The commission says it is "far from ideal" that Wednesday would not have the opportunity to play their way out of trouble. The Owls collected eight points from their final nine games following the resumption of the season in June.

However, it points out the situation could have been avoided had the EFL stuck to the substantive case of the sale of Hillsborough to owner Chansiri having taken place during the 2017-18 financial year, rather than also pursuing the deception charge.

The commission says it was presented with over 5,000 pages of submissions, evidence and legal texts to go through before the case, which was heard over four days in June.

"It was abundantly plain to us charge 2 was the charge which substantially extended the proceedings," explained the commission in a 10-page submission about the reasons for imposing the deduction and the timing of it.

"We are quite satisfied that had the commission been required only to deal with charge 1, the substantive hearing could have been dealt with significantly earlier than it was. It is at least possible a hearing considering charge 1 alone would have taken place well before the end of the 2019-20 season as it was intended to be until Covid-19 arose."

The final league games were scheduled to take place on 2 May.