Fiddling the books from the tax man could potentially end up with a point deduction or a huge fine. We don't know, the potential buyer is taking on a massive risk with this unknown over the club.
Nice one Ashley.
That's the point...we don't know. So talk of points deduction etc is premature.
However, the buyer WILL know what it entails and will have covered the risk in the DD process. So presumably, if they've made an offer, it also means they have evaluated this big scary HMRC thing and deem it not not be so big or scary.
Of course, there could also be an "OR"...they see impending doom so £50m shy is fair because the s*** is about to hit the fan
This is it, they have looked through the books and thought "we aint going to offer what he wants with a shit storm on the horizon".