How big a point deduction this time, sir?

What came and went as an average weekend for a bluenose, handing out points to a relegation battling side, was only made worse come Monday afternoon. The Monday blues were made even more blue when the EFL released this statement.

Yet again, it appears that there's been a cock up within our ownership and we're here spending our hard earned money on a club that doesn't know up from down.

In simple terms, what does the EFL statement mean for us?

To begin with, the investigation, and subsequent penalties, revolve around the failed takeover by Maxco Capital. In short, during the span of their involvement in the club, allegations state that there were individuals making business decisions that had NOT passed the Owners' and Directors' Test (OADT).

Now, as always, we're in the dark as to who this actually alludes to specifically. However, shortly after the news broke out, Paul Richardson released a reply via his Instagram story, saying that Maxco will "defend any alleged breaches of the regulations vigorously". What we can take from this is that Maxi Lopez and Paul Richardson are two of the people that are in the firing line. This raises a huge question for us, and that is HOW?!

It seems, at least from an outside perspective, that it wouldn't take much due diligence to realise that the OADT is an important step to overcome. This is especially true before painting a red target around your involvement with a club, as seen below:

Credit: OfficialMaxiLopez via Instagram

We don't want to be too quick to point fingers or play the blame game, but there seems to be a massive short-falling from all parties involved here. One point that has to be noted, is that it's hard to believe that Maxco were openly going against the EFL when they invested £7.5M into BCFC (in goodwill) within that timeframe. The news only goes from bad to worse when speculating on the potential repercussions this has on Blues. Only 5 minutes on the Twittersphere makes it apparent that a points deduction is incoming. However, Almajir does a great job of comparing a similar case at Rochdale AFC in 2022, giving us all an idea of what we could truly be facing.

Oh, did we forget to mention that there is still an ongoing investigation into Wang Yaohui?