Peterborough United have been cheated by EFL ruling says Barry Fry, but the club will use a ‘sickening’ setback as motivation for next season

Peterborough United director of football Barry Fry insists the club have been ‘cheated’ by an EFL statement today (May 21) which virtually assured Posh will not be winning promotion to the Championship this season.
Barry Fry.Barry Fry.
Barry Fry.

The EFL will ask League One clubs to vote on continuing or curtailing the season next week. If, as expected, the clubs vote to curtail, an unweighted points-per-game average will be applied to determine final placings and the Posh season will be over.

Clubs have been given until 5pm next Tuesday (May 26) to reflect and respond on today’s news. A vote will then be held on an unconfirmed date.

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Posh will vote to continue the season, but Fry admits it would take a miracle for them to collect the 51% of votes needed to win the day.

Darragh MacAnthony.Darragh MacAnthony.
Darragh MacAnthony.

“We need 12 clubs to vote our way,” Fry said. “It would be a miracle if that happened.

“I feel bitter right now. This outcome is completely unfair and goes against the integrity of the competition. It’s a sickener for the club.

“Points per game is a nonsense. At least use a fomula that includes home form, away form and the games you still have to play at home and away.

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“We’ve been cheated. We’ve been denied the chance to finish what we started by the EFL who have not been strong enough and by clubs who don’t want to play football.

“I feel for our chairman who is one in a million and his co-owners who have also been superb throughout this crisis. Those three sat down in January when we could have sold three players for a combined fee of £12 million, but they wouldn’t because they wanted to win promotion for our fans.

“I also feel for those fans who have supported the club brilliantly this season and continue to support us by buying season tickets for next season even when we didn’t know what division we were in.

“And I feel for Darren Ferguson who has built a great squad and who now does not get to try and guide them to promotion. We might not have gone up, but to even be denied the chance to try is absurd.

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“It’s not just our club either. I feel for Tranmere who will be relegated even though they’d won their last three matches to get to within three points, and with a game in hand, of safety.

“It’s a cruel and unfair way to decide anything, but we will have to use the setback as motivation for next season.

“We will still be better off than most at our level. We have all the players we want under contract. Obviously Ivan Toney will be a big loss to the team, but we have promised him he can leave if we didn’t go up and what we get for him will see us through next season.

“There are 1400 players out of contract at the end of June and I can see many of them becoming unemployed because of cutbacks. If we’d carried on they could have signed monthly details and kept playing.”