Latest Nottingham Forest news: Nuno Espirito Santo responds to the Reds’ rejected appeal for player spending breaches.
Nottingham Forest’s head coach, Nuno Espirito Santo, argues that the club must learn from its points deduction for violating financial rules.
Without the four-point deduction for violating Profitability and Sustainability Rules, the Reds would be safe from relegation by now. However, their unsuccessful appeal against their sentence puts them three points above the drop zone with two games remaining.
Forest was found to have exceeded their maximum allowable losses of £61 million over a rolling three-year period by £34.5 million. Nuno hopes that the club will not face a similar predicament again in the future.
When asked what the Reds had learned from the saga, he replied, “Not to repeat the same mistakes. This is life. “You learn from your mistakes.”
According to the written grounds for the first independent commission’s decision on Forest’s breach, the club understood how to “avoid being in a similar situation in a year’s time”. Losses ranging from £12 million to £17 million were projected for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024.
The situation suggests that the Reds will sell players this summer, though not necessarily in a fire sale, regardless of which division they are in next season. However, Nuno is unsure how adhering to the guidelines will affect the club’s transfer operations.
“I don’t know because I don’t know the exact situation we are in,” he replied. “It’s been different than typical because at this point of the season, you generally start planning for the future, and we didn’t have that opportunity. We had too much work and duties to be distracted by anything, yet there were plenty of distractions.
“(Not knowing the division) is the primary factor. Everything will change as the season progresses, but now is not the time to consider or discuss this. That’s something for us to deal with later.”
Nuno has tried to avoid delving into the facts of Forest’s PSR case, but he is eager to better grasp the situation in the future and will take the time to educate himself after the season ends.
He hopes that in the future, such issues can be resolved more quickly. The Portuguese have stated unequivocally that the delay in determining the problem risks jeopardizing the league’s integrity.
“I don’t know what happened in actuality. I can’t tell you too much about it,” he stated ahead of this weekend’s match against Chelsea. “What is essential to us is that the problem has been resolved and will hopefully not occur again.
“But, at the end of the day, I believe the league’s integrity was harmed by all of the issues surrounding the point deductions, particularly the timing.” Two games to go, and you’re wondering why the choice didn’t come sooner. Then you begin to wonder why this is the decision. It will have an impact on other clubs as well.
“I don’t want to bring up too many difficulties, but I believe there are still some things that need to be explained. At the end of the season, everyone must grasp what transpired. Why did the decision come so late? Why didn’t we win our appeal? All of these issues, I personally would like to know the answer to.”
When asked if he still had unanswered questions, Nuno replied: “For me personally, yes. But this is not the time. The end of the season would be the ideal time.
“What I was trying to express was that I had been unaware of the entire procedure since the beginning. And, honestly, I didn’t make an effort to understand. But that’s on me. That will come at the end; I have too many things to focus on to complete the lawyer’s job.”
