I am watching Sky Sports pre-match show now, and everybody on the table saying this 10-point deduction was harsh, and if you want to punish people, punish the owners and this and that…
I get it, Man City has over 100 allegations, and Chelsea has some too but that doesn’t change the fact Everton is in the wrong as well, personally, I think they will be fine even with the points deductions there are teams worse than them and they are playing well enough to be safe till the end of the season.
And if the end of the day, it’s proven Man City and Chelsea are also in the wrong, punish them, simple as that.
I just don’t get the feeling of “oh poor lads, they don’t deserve this…” Please, we have teams in history that suffered way more than a simple 10-point deduction and the level of outrage wasn’t near the same. We have teams that played in the Premier League out of league football because of poor management.
Everton overspent by £19.5, which is peanuts in today’s game. And, if you read the report there are circumstances around new stadium interest payments, players being arrested, and a few little gambles that didn’t pay off.
Everton are no doubt in violation of sustainability rules, but it’s hardly in the nature of ‘financial doping’ or deliberate rule breaking.
I can only speak for myself, but it seems odd the punishment for literally going into administration is less severe than ‘being a bit shit with money’.
£19.5m might not be much, but you’ve got to have a cut off somewhere. Sure, there’s some issues with the PL changing how interest payments are considered with regards to FFP, but “gambles that didn’t pay off” would be the exact reasoning for punishment. Most clubs over-investing are hoping for a gamble to pay off, lower league clubs do it all the time to try and secure PL finances. If they manage to get promoted they’re all good, if they don’t, they’re fucked, and normally find themselves relegated within 2 years.
This £19.5m is on top of the £200m they already lost “due to Covid”. They were fortunate that a lot of the losses were disregarded because of that excuse. One of the ridiculous claims that the PL did reject was “depreciation of assets”, Everton overvalued their players and then tried claiming that covid cost them 50% of the value of sales.
Financial doping is worse I agree, and the only reason why we’ve got this reaction is because City and Chelsea haven’t been punished as of yet. There’s very little trust that they will do so either. But, Everton’s losses were a very deliberate gamble and they should rightly be punished for that. As for the administration comparison, maybe it’s a case of old rulings weren’t harsh enough. As long as this new harsh precedent is consistent I have no issue with it, and that’s the real talking point for many tbh.
You are spot on. Everton also knew where they stood and were in constant contact with the league. It got to the point where they had to justify and get each of their transfers approved by the league because of how close they were to breaching. Their claims around Richarlison and Sigurdsson are absolutely pathetic.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, and as such I agree Everton should face a sanction of some sort. But my opinion is that 10 points (again, more than for going into administration) is a little harsh.
They also had losses of 371.8m over a 3 year period instead of the allowed 105m.