READING face a scrap to avoid relegation from the Championship after being deducted SIX POINTS for financial breaches.
The Royals were docked six points for breaching financial regulations last season, with another six points suspended until the current campaign.
But they have now been hit with the further punishment after they accepted they have not been able to comply with the EFL business plan despite making "radical" changes across the board.
Reading confirmed the news in a statement.
It read: "We can confirm that the club has accepted a six-point penalty which has been applied immediately following the club’s failure to fully satisfy a business plan agreed after a historical breach of the EFL’s Profit & Sustainability limits."
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"The points deduction will be applied to our total with immediate effect."
The blow sees them move from 18th to 20th in the Championship table.
Reading now sit just ONE point above 21st-placed Huddersfield and six points ahead of bottom-placed Wigan.
The club further explained the deduction, writing: "In November 2021, the club were issued with a six-point deduction for a cumulative breach of the regulations - with a further six-point penalty suspended until 2022-23.
"At the time of the original breach, it was agreed with the League this further six-point penalty was due to be applied if the club could not meet the demands of an agreed business plan for 2022-23.
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"Despite radical changes implemented 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 it has not sufficiently satisfied certain elements of the planned budget.
"As a result, the independent Club Financial Review Panel has been unable to ratify that the club has met its forecast for compliance."
Reading further detailed their attempts to stay within the rules in a lengthy statement.
It read: "Back in November, we vowed that lessons would be learned.
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"And the strides which have been made have been significant; it is evident in our methods, procedures and actions over recent years - and most notably throughout this season - that the mistakes of the past have been understood, corrected and won’t be made again.
"In abiding by the EFL rules, the club have not spent a penny on transfer fees since the summer of 2020 and have not paid a loan fee to any club since the summer of 2019.
"Our squad has been entirely rebuilt from free transfers, free loanees and Academy graduates.
"Every single professional contract proposed has been scrutinised and ratified by the EFL before it has been offered.
"We have operated under a mutually-agreed capped wage bill imposed following our breach of the Profit and Sustainability regulations – our wage bill has been almost halved since the start of the 2019-20 season.
"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.
"The progress made has been recognised.
"It has been agreed with the EFL that the club’s restrictive embargo will effectively end this summer.
"The club will, for the first time in years, be able to act sensibly in the transfer market - within a budget currently being reviewed by the Club Financial Review Unit and compliant with Profit & Sustainability boundaries, but free of the strictest limitations which have proven problematic in trying to piece together a team capable of challenging in the Championship and a squad tasked with taking this club towards a brighter more self-sustainable future.
"However, in the here and now, we find ourselves with another huge fight on our hands."
Reading have been in the Championship since getting relegated from the Premier League in 2013.
