West Brom shareholders group chair contacts EFL on alleged breach with 'my own informed view' point

Shareholders for Albion chairman Leigh Kent has sought clarity from the English Football League on the charge hanging over the club.

It emerged last week that relegation-battling Albion face a hearing in relation to a charge of financial breach, relating to profit and sustainability regulations, from the EFL.

It is believed the charge relates to interest payment on an historic loan from United States lender MSD Holdings taken between 2022 and 2023 under the previous ownership of Guochuan Lai.

The Championship club insist they are not in breach.

The S4A group represents the club’s minority shareholders, who now make up around eight per cent of club shares now majoritively owned by Shilen Patel’s ownership group Bilkul Football WBA. The group are keen for answers on the ongoing wrangle.

Kent, who works in the legal industry, said in a statement: “In my capacity as chairman as Shareholders for Albion, I sent a lengthy email to the EFL last night (copying in the Independent Football Regulator) addressing a number of relevant issues related to the reported PSR charge against Albion.

“The matters of sporting integrity and timing speak for themselves.

“In terms of the substance of the charge against the Albion, the club rightly cannot discuss that with me at this stage.

“If the precise issue is what I think it is, my own (informed by being involved in all detail there since 2020) view is that, if the EFL had taken all relevant matters into account, the Albion would not be in breach.

“I have set out all of these reasons and reminded the EFL of the sequence of events which led to having to take out the MSD loan (including fundamental shortcoming/culpability on the part of the EFL and Premier League creating the need for a very significant part of this loan at least).

“Please bear in mind these matters are complex and the Albion will have been professionally advised by at least two sets of professionals on them.”

Kent liaised closely with the club in his position as the group’s chairman in the spiralling tenure of Lai, from which the Baggies were rescued in February 2024, when it was understood administration had become a very real prospect.

The shareholders chair added comparisons when it came to the situations involving Leicester and Sheffield Wednesday, the clubs bottom and second-bottom of the division. The Foxes are close to joining the Owls as relegated to League One.