Acun Ilicali has written an open letter to Hull City supporters to clarify the club's recent transfer embargo and ongoing fee restrictions punishment.
The Tigers were put under an embargo by the Football League last week over their failure to pay a £1m loan fee to Aston Villa for Louie Barry, who joined for the second half of the season.
The embargo has since been lifted with the Championship settling their debt, but they have been told that for the next three transfer windows they cannot pay transfer or loan fees to sign players, limiting them to free transfers until 2027. It is the same punishment Sheffield Wednesday are under.
Hull intend to appeal, arguing the length of the punishment is excessive.
The Tigers also had an issue regarding the loan fee for Fin Burns, who spent the 2024-25 campaign on loan from Manchester City, and has since joined League One Reading on loan.
These issues, late payments to certain suppliers and a minor delay to players wages in April, on top of losses of £500,000 a week in the club's last published accounts, have raised concerns amongst supporters about the financial health of the club, who want to revamp their squad this summer after narrowly avoiding relegation and bringing in new coach Sergej Jakirovic.
Hull's Turkish owner has moved to clarify the situations and reassure faNS.
Last summer, Aston Villa exercised a buy-back clause to re-sign Jaden Philogene from the Tigers. He was then sold to Ipswich.
OPEN LETTER: Hull City owner/chairman Acun Ilıcalı (centre) (Image: George Wood)placeholder image
OPEN LETTER: Hull City owner/chairman Acun Ilıcalı (centre) (Image: George Wood)
Hull are understood to have thought money owed on that transfer covered the Barry payment, although in seeking to "clarify a few matters", Ilicali only wrote that: "There are zero issues between us and Aston Villa, in relation to both Louie Barry and Jaden Philogene arrangements, and we are very confident in our appeal case."
On Burns, he added: "We intended to use proceeds of a player sale to settle this fee and as soon as the EFL told us this wasn’t possible – due to reasons not related to us, we made a direct payment immediately to end the matter."
Embargoes can be triggered when the Football League (EFL) sees that payments are not made but in the case of loan deals in particular, they often come about when the club owed money makes a complaint to them.
Hull and Villa have enjoyed a good relationship under Ilicali's tenure, and he insists this remains the case.
ISSUE: Hull City were late paying for Louie Barry (Image: Jonathan Gawthorpe)placeholder image
ISSUE: Hull City were late paying for Louie Barry (Image: Jonathan Gawthorpe)
"I want to reassure our fans that we have zero conflict with any clubs," he wrote. "Perhaps there were some finance administrative errors but I am sure the EFL will be understanding to our appeal".
On wider financial issues, he commented: "With regards to payments to suppliers, unfortunately, the club experienced a cash flow issue when it didn’t receive a £1.5m payment for a player which was intended to clear invoices from suppliers. I will cover this shortfall until we receive the funds we are owed and our team are in communication with all suppliers to rectify any outstanding issues as soon as possible."
Ilicali maintained the stance he has had since buying the club in January 2022 – that he is quite prepared to cover the club's losses as they try to compete for a top-10 position in the notoriously competitive Championship, where some clubs are in receipts of tens of millions of pounds in parachute payments.
So far this summer the club have signed free transfers Semi Ajayi and Dillon Phillips, and have free agent Jonjo Shelvey on trial. Earlier in the year they announced the permanent signing of loanee Gustavo Puerta, plus the £400,000 addition of Reda Laalaoui but with neither deal registered with the Football League before fee restrictions were applied, it remains to be seen if these will be allowed to go through.