On this day in 1994, Alan Sugar successfully appealed against the FA’s biggest punishment, which had seen the club start the 1994/95 with a £600,000 fine, thrown out of the 1994-95 FA Cup and docked 12 points after they were found guilty of alleged illegal payments made to players between 1985-1989.
Alan Sugar had been dogged in his refusal to accept the punishment, which was the severest punishments ever handed out and shocked the football world. The first appeal against the penalties imposed by the FA inquiry into the charge of misconduct was held in early July. Chairman, Alan Sugar, presented Spurs’ case against all of the punishments. Having considered the case, the Appeal panel halved the points deduction to six but increased the fine to £1,500,000 as well as maintaining the Cup ban.
Sugar was incensed with the outcome, arguing that the alleged misconduct charges had been under a previous regime at the club and also that he had fully co-operate with the FA over the investigation. He immediately announced that Spurs would again appeal against the penalties that had been imposed against the club.
On 9th December 1994, Alan Sugar won the day, when the view of the arbitration tribunal was that the FA’s charges against Spurs had been ‘misconceived, bad in law and should not have been proceeded with….. and it was irrational to impose any penalty other than a fine.’ The penalties were overturned, with the points deduction removed and the club was re-instated to the FA Cup
The authorities had treated Spurs in a heavy handed manner, taking no account of Spurs full co-operation in the investigation and they certainly had not anticipated coming face to face with someone like Alan Sugar
The Tottenham team celebrated this success with a 3 – 1 home win over Sheffield Wednesday the following day.
The club also re-entered the FA Cup and would see an exciting run to the Semi Finals – undoubtedly a huge sigh of relief from the FA when we didn’t progress to the Final.
We were to finish 7th in the Premier League, with 62 points – ironically, we would have still survived “certain relegation” with the 12 point deduction, the initial press reaction to the penalty claimed.