Nottingham Forest will have to save their season and avoid relegation on the pitch.

The Premier League club have seen their appeal against a points deduction turned down.

An independent panel rejected the club's appeal against their four-point deduction.

Summing up their decision, they said: “Some of the criticisms of the decision have involved a minute examination of the words used by the commission. Decisions such as these should not be subjected to microscopic forensic examination and interpreted as if they were statutes which have been drafted by Parliamentary Counsel. Allegations of infelicities of language or errors which are not material to the ultimate decision add to the complexity and costs of proceedings and are rarely likely to lead to a successful challenge of a decision.

“A further practice that adds to complexity and cost is the citation of other decisions on sanctions imposed for breach of the PSR. We have been assisted by being referred to the appeals in Sheffield Wednesday and Everton 1. That is because the decisions in both cases contained statements of general guidance. But reference to individual cases on particular facts is generally unhelpful and should be avoided.

“It is understandable that clubs wishing to appeal against sanction will search for other cases to compare the seriousness of the breach in the instant case with that in other cases. As the numbers of these cases increases, there will be growing temptation to examine them in detail and burden commissions and appeal boards with minute examination of the similarities with and differences from the instant case. Such an approach will rarely be helpful. For the reasons that we have given, we are unanimous that the commission was entitled (and right) to impose the sanction of a deduction of four points and to refuse to suspend it."