AFC Bournemouth fined $6.28 million by EFL for breach of Financial Fair Play regulations

Bournemouth will pay $6.28 million to the English Football League (EFL) for a breach of the financial fair play (FFP) rules for the 2014-15 season, both parties said on Thursday.

Bournemouth were deemed to have breached the FFP rules in the 2014/15 season, when they won the second-tier Championship and earned promotion to the Premier League, recording a $50.8 million loss in the process.

“In reaching a settlement, the EFL acknowledges that the Club did not make any deliberate attempt to infringe the Rules or to deceive,” the EFL said in a statement, adding, “all relevant matters were taken into account when determining the quantum of the settlement.”

The EFL, the governing body for the second-tier Championship and the lower tiers of English football, fined Bournemouth in 2016 for breaching their financial regulations. The case was put on hold as Queens Park Rangers (QPR) challenged the EFL’s FFP rules before an arbitral panel, claiming that they were “were unlawful under competition law”.

British media reported QPR were fined in the range of $77 million. The case is still ongoing. Leicester City were the most recent Premier League team to be fined by the EFL for financial violations while they were in the Championship, with the Foxes paying a $4.1 million fine in February.