I have never really understood the change that was made it never made any sense to me can you please explain
I'll try.
FFP was originally introduced in 2010, to take effect for the first time from 2011/12. But clubs were concerned that player contracts entered into prior to 2010 could impact their FFP assessment even though they were unaware of the FFP rules at the time. UEFA therefore introduced a temporary rule that, in principle, clubs failing FFP in the initial two assessment periods wouldn't be sanctioned if they could show that their failure was solely a result of wages paid under contracts signed prior to June 2010.
As part of that arrangement, they set out in their FFP toolkit, which clubs had to follow, how to work out whether that was the case or not. The first assessment period covered 2011/12 and 2012/13 and there were three parts to the test, all of which had to be met to claim mitigation. One of those three related solely to the 2011/12 season and if you couldn't meet that, then you couldn't claim that mitigation, regardless of your financial results in 2012/13.
The initial test for 2011/12 was quite complicated, more than it needed to be, but we passed it and therefore could go on to test the other two conditions. I worked out at the time that we needed to show losses under £55m in 2012/13 to fully comply with the three tests. Thanks to the £24.5m from Fordham, we looked like we'd done that but for 2012/13, UEFA changed the part of the test that applied solely to 2011/12 just after we published our 2011/12 accounts, but that was in March or April 2013, well after our June 2012 year-end, so there was nothing we could do.
The revised test was actually much simpler and more logical, involving (if I remember correctly) simply deducting the applicable wage total from the net loss and seeing if the adjusted figure was a net profit. If it was, you were OK. However we were now on the wrong side of it compared to the original test and therefore couldn't claim mitigation.
Khaldoon mentioned in his statement, after it was revealed we'd failed FFP and were being sanctioned, the the issue was about the treatment of those pre-June 2010 wages. That's what made me go back and check the relevant rules, which is how I saw there'd been a change and was able to work out, based on the figures I had, that it was only a matter of £2-3m either way but on the new test we were the wrong side.
You can argue about the motive or morality of changing something after the chance to comply had passed by a few months. I compared it to driving on a road that had a 30mph limit on Friday, staying within the speed limit but then being told you were being prosecuted because they'd changed it to 20mph on Saturday. If we'd taken UEFA to court, I suspect that's the sort of argument we'd have used (although in a rather more sophisticated way).
