Finance expert shares very worrying behind-scenes Nottingham Forest claim

Nottingham Forest’s financial situation and wage bill has been described as being ‘out of control’ by football finance expert Kieran Maguire.

Nottingham Forest, along with Everton and Leicester City, have been at the forefront of controversy and debate around the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules in recent weeks and months. The Reds were handed a points deduction last month for failing to meet the rules, and now more insight has been given into their spending.

Recent accounts show that Forest’s wage bill was around £15 million higher than that of Premier League rivals Brighton, who have been in the Premier League much longer than Forest and have established themselves as a top flight club. That’s a worry to football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who has been discussing the matter with Football Insider.

Forest Wages ‘Out of Control’

Maguire analysed Forest’s wage bill, looking at how much they spent on players’ earnings after they were promoted to the Premier League through the Championship play-offs. He concluded that the Tricky Trees’ have lost control of their spending and have no sympathy going their way.

“If you take a look at Forest’s wage bill, it’s about £15million more than that of Brighton, who are an established mid-tier Premier League club,” Maguire said. “It shows that Forest were paying very generous wages for a club in its first season in the Premier League.

“If you look at clubs that have been promoted over the course of the last decade, it is clear that Nottingham Forest’s wage bill is out of control. Therefore I think any sympathy towards the club with regards to their FFP breach has been tempered because the club just appeared to disregard the rules.”

Nuno’s Angry Response to PSR Punishment

“I think I punched something that was near to me,” Nuno revealed last month when he heard this news. “Of course I was disappointed. But that lasted for a couple of minutes, because [I knew] immediately we need to bounce back from that moment and work harder.

“There’s the sense of reality when you come to this moment and you realise that you’re in a tough moment. The situation that we’re in requires everybody to be really focused on the task ahead of us. The past is the past. The future tells us that we have to win games. We have to stick together and go for it. We don’t need anything else but our own ambition to stay in the Premier League.”

He added: “Now we know. Who am I to say what is fair or unfair? I have to adjust and deal with reality. We’ve had enough of words, now let’s go to actions.

“I know our fans are going to be with us, because they always are. (They are) more than a 12th man … but the ­feeling of war – us against the world – I think doesn’t help us. Because we know it’s not a war, it’s a game of football and we have to enjoy it. The backing of our fans is going to be huge for us.”