Leeds United promotion rivals Leicester City given resistance warning as legal plans declared

All bets are off where Leicester City are concerned after being charged with an alleged breach of the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability rules. That's according to football finance expert Stefan Borson, who also believes Leeds United's promotion rivals' decision to open legal proceedings could end up working against them if they are found guilty.

Leicester became the third club this season to be charged by the Premier League, following on from Nottingham Forest and Everton, who have both been deducted points, with the club's accounts expected to demonstrate a breach in spending rules when they are released in the coming days. The club have since been handed a transfer embargo by the EFL, who will be conducting its own investigation into the matter.

The Foxes have released two strong statements since the initial charge with the most recent outlining the 'urgent' legal steps they have taken against both governing bodies after being 'compelled to act'. Unfortunately for Leicester, though, Borson feels that could lead an independent commission to be less lenient in any punishment that could come down the track, especially after seeing Forest deducted just four points after working with the league following their charge.

“They seem to be going very hard on the sort of legal defence," Borson told Talksport. "The worst case scenario when you resist them in a way that they seem to be resisting is that you effectively sacrifice the mitigation that Nottingham Forest received.

“So you immediately effectively say ‘We're kissing goodbye to two or three points of mitigation’. What that means, of course, is that it puts you straight in towards the top end of the range that is now being established in the cases that we've seen.

"So we're sort of seeing a range of 3-8 points for a significant breach of PSR, so you would think that they're resisting very hard because they know that this is not a situation where they could effectively have a minor breach and then get a discount for cooperation, which would effectively make it a zero point deduction or a one point deduction.

“They obviously fear a very big deduction and taking a view that a 2-3 point mitigation for cooperation is only going to get them part of the way down the road.”

He added: “Leicester City are captured by the old rules and the old rules don't have the expedited timetable of the rules that came in after they were relegated. It will be a sort of slower, probably a more tortuous legal battle that will resolve itself probably sometime in the middle of next season.

“All bets are off, and clearly Leicester's KC, who I think is Nick De Marco, who we know acted for Nottingham Forest, clearly believes that they have some good arguments to run as such that they can risk throwing in the bin any possibility of mitigation for cooperation and early admission.”