Sheffield United chief executive Stephen Bettis says the club do not expect to be hit with an English Football League points deduction, and that the owners would “fight hard” if any such sanction were imposed.
The EFL investigation was opened after the company used to buy the club was placed into liquidation by the High Court in August. COH Sports Bidco Limited (CSBL) agreed to purchase the Championship club for just over £100m in December 2024, but about £35m is still owed on the deal. A winding-up petition was filed in July against CSBL by United World, the club’s former owners. Under EFL rules, insolvency events can trigger a 12-point penalty.
Bettis spent an hour in the BBC Radio Sheffield studio on Tuesday night, with the potential deduction top of the agenda. He set out the owners’ case that the penalty should not apply, arguing that the 12-point sanction only relates to the club, or a company within the group, going into insolvency. The advice the owners have received from their lawyers, he said, is that the club certainly did not go into insolvency, that it is funded and paying all its bills on time. He added that the company which is no longer in the group has now had a winding-up order against it. The owners’ position, Bettis explained, is that the winding-up petition happened after that entity was no longer within the Sheffield United group, and that while it was inside the group it never had a winding-up order and did not become insolvent.
Even so, Bettis accepted that risk remains. He said the EFL are still investigating and that there is still the risk of sanctions from their perspective, with fines, a points deduction and other outcomes all still on the table until a verdict is delivered. He said he would not categorically state the club are not at risk, and that if any decision is made to go down that path the owners would fight it quite hard.
BBC Sport contacted the EFL for comment and was told that “matters still remain ongoing”. Bettis pointed to the case of Southampton, who were docked 10 points by the EFL in 2009 after their parent company went into administration while the club claimed there was no financial link between the two, describing it as not a direct comparison. He stressed that the entity involved was not a parent company for Sheffield United when the liquidation happened, calling that an important difference, and argued that the EFL have been aware of the matter for four months and would already have charged the club if the case were clear cut. The owners, he said, have cooperated fully with the investigation, which is now being deliberated internally, with the club waiting for a response.
Away from the investigation, Bettis said discussions continue between the current owners and former owner Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad Al Saud over a payment of nearly £35m, which they feel should be reduced. He said the existing owners have issues with the previous owner and believe the outstanding sum should be a lesser amount, and that he does not believe for one minute the new owners are trying not to pay what is owed, but that they think the figure needs to be adjusted.
Bettis also said director Timothy Ryan has passed the fit and proper owner test with both the EFL and the Independent Football Regulator, and that he had been told the prospect of co-chair Steven Rosen facing disqualification by the EFL was “not an issue”. The club will not reinvest the proceeds of their summer transfer business in January, the chief executive added.