Hatters chairman insists teams must be punished for breaking the rules

Hatters chairman David Wilkinson insists that those clubs who break the financial rules in the Championship should be punished.

It was confirmed last week that Town’s potential relegation rivals Birmingham City would not be deducted any points for the second time in two seasons, despite the English Football League winning its appeal against an independent disciplinary commission’s decision to clear the Blues of a misconduct charge.

Fellow Championship clubs Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday now face a nervous wait to see if they will avoid any punishment and potential points deductions, the Rams for alleged breaches of financial rules following a review of the club's Profitability and Sustainability submissions, and the Owls over alleged breaches regarding the £60 million sale of Hillsborough to chairman Dejphon Chansiri.

Wilkinson, who saw Town drop out of the Football League in 2009 after being deducted 30 points, 10 by the FA for irregular matters involving player transfers, and 20 by the Football League for breaking rules on exiting administration, doesn’t think it should be one rule for one club and a different one for others.

He said: “You don’t want to see it, but if people break the rules, they should be punished.

“We’ve been punished and nobody has been as severely punished as us in the past.

“All you hope is that people get justice and if they’ve done something, just as we did something wrong, we got punished, we couldn’t appeal, and nor should they be able to do I don’t think.

“It’s going to keep happening, as next year, there’s probably a lot more clubs who have overspent, and they may get forgiven because of coronavirus, as there’s no money in football.

“The Football League doesn’t have money, it basically has what it gets from TV and media, sponsorship but that’s about it.

“They can’t give us anything and nothing has been given.

“Sometimes people say ‘you’re getting money from the Football League,’ well it’s only your money, it’s just money you would have got next year, that has maybe come a bit early.”

Although Hatters were in fairly good shape financially ahead of the virus hitting, Wilkinson believes the whole culture has to change in the near future.

If so, and Town can survive the drop to League One this term, it could put them in a far stronger position than some of their opponents too, according to the chairman, who added: “It’s terrifying when you think it’s sort of accepted as being normal that you can lose 39 million quid in three years in the Championship, it’s a nonsense isn’t it?

“So it’s got to change. We’re as close to breaking even as anybody, or we would have been before the virus.

“You don’t know what the future holds, but we’re in better shape than most.

“It could be excellent as there are going to be changes, we don’t know what they are, as they seem to be taking an inordinate amount of time,

"But there are going to be wages caps and squad caps I think, it’s going to have to happen at all levels and that can only help us.

"If we can survive, it can help us and to be fair to Gary (Sweet), he's been quite involved, as clubs like ours are quite noisy about change, and Gary is quite into that.

"He is part of that, he’s made it his business to join with other clubs to try and get change, and so that’s exciting too, he is an impressive character when it comes to that action."