Middlesbrough's Championship rivals handed six-point deduction

The Championship club, who Middlesbrough hit for five at the Riverside last month, have dropped from 46 points to 40, leaving them just one point above the relegation zone as a result of the penalty.

The sanction relates to the club’s failure to meet the terms of a business plan agreed following a breach of the profit and sustainability limits in 2021. The initial breach carried a six-point penalty with a further six points suspended until the current campaign.

That has now been enforced.

A club statement read: “Despite radical changes implemented at first team level and right across the structure of the business to its very core – and a rigid adherence to a strict league-monitored wage structure and transfer embargo, the club accepts that it has not sufficiently satisfied certain elements of the planned budget and that, as a result, the independent club financial review panel has been unable to ratify that the club has met its forecast for compliance.

“We have worked closely with the EFL and the independent club financial review unit throughout the process in our aims to achieve the targets set out in the agreed business plan and every reasonable effort has been made to construct a competitive squad of players whilst avoiding further punishment.

“However, despite the substantial progress we have undeniably made and the lessons that have indeed been learned, as promised, we accept that the situation was never going to be easily or quickly fixed,” it added.