Relegated Leicester's bid to win an instant return to the Premier League has suffered an immediate blow after they were charged with breaking financial rules.
In September, the Foxes narrowly escaped a top-flight point deduction after the club appealed a profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) decision.
The club had recorded pre-tax losses of £92.5m and £90m for the 2022 and 2023 financial years respectively.
The Foxes, who were relegated this season, were staring down the barrel of a sanction after the league referred them to an independent commission in March over suspected offences.
Leicester then took the case to an independent appeal board who later reversed the commission's decision, finding that the club did not breach PSRs for the assessment period ending June 30, 2023.
In an update over the matter, the Foxes wrote in a statement on Tuesday: 'The Club is pleased that it successfully defended the Premier League's challenge to the Appeal Board decision in relation to the PSR assessment period ending FY23, which was the main focus of these proceedings.
'The Premier League's own rules provide a deliberately high threshold for any challenge to the decision of an Appeal Board. In this case, the Appeal Board's decision was only capable of being overturned if it could be shown to have resulted from a 'perverse interpretation of the law' or was a decision 'which could not reasonably have been reached'.
'The Appeal Board decision was reached by a highly experienced panel (including two former Court of Appeal judges) and, although the tribunal may have disagreed with the decision, it dismissed the Premier League's challenge, finding (consistent with the arguments made by the Club all along) that the Appeal Board decision 'could not sensibly be seen as resulting from a perverse interpretation of the law'.
'The tribunal also concluded that the Premier League was successful in establishing jurisdiction on one of the two grounds argued by the Premier League with respect to the assessment period ending FY24, and the Premier League has now referred this to an independent Commission.
'Consistent with its previous commitments, the Club intends to engage cooperatively in this matter now that the Premier League's jurisdiction has been established for the period ending FY24. However, we will not be able to comment further on these proceedings until they are concluded, due to their confidential nature'.
More to follow...