The arbitration panel will decide on the fate of League One by 5pm today

Any return of 12 points or less to Leeds will see the Swans finally confirmed as League One champions for the season whilst a return of more than that tally will see us needing to get something at Brighton this weekend to secure the honour.

But it is the positions below Swansea that will be impacted more by the decision with Carlisle, Doncaster and Nottingham Forest all potentially currently finding themselves able to meet the runners-up spot but could find that taken away from them by the decision of the arbitration panel.

BBC Radio Leeds reports that the decision will be made by 5pm today when a three-man arbitration panel will make the announcement at the Offices of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

The panel could back the ruling or, if they find the penalty unlawful, they could reinstate all 15 points.

Leeds have secured a play-off spot but if all the points are reinstated they would go up automatically.

Another option could see the panel return a proportion of the lost points, with five being the most likely added to Leeds' current total according to BBC Sport

The Elland Road club are demanding a maximum return of points as they believe the 15-point sanction placed on them by the Football League to be unlawful.

They had already been docked 10 points for originally entering administration while still in the Championship, so in total they have been docked 25 points.

United claim the League acted outside its jurisdiction by imposing the penalty for what it perceived to be a failure to follow insolvency policy – namely not agreeing a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) before exiting administration.

Last summer, KPMG, the administrator then running the club, withdrew the CVA, which had been passed by the requisite 75 per cent majority at an earlier meeting of creditors, following a legal challenge to the vote by the Inland Revenue.

The administrator insisted sufficient funds were not available to keep the business going until the taxman's challenge could be heard in the High Court in September so, instead, they put the club up for sale. Ken Bates then fought off several rival bids to buy United in July.

However, this failure to agree a CVA – unlike, as Lord Mawhinney pointed out, all the other 41 clubs who had previously been in administration had managed – eventually led to the League citing "exceptional circumstances" as they hit Leeds with the sanction of a 15-point deduction to go with the 10 points the club originally lost in May.

But finally all of that should come to a result today and there are people at the football league who should hang their heads in shame that it has gone this far and this late.

Champions anybody?

Photo: Action Images

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