Honestly I think it’s still overly harsh considering the circumstances. It’d be one thing if they were just flaunting the rules.
But they got fucked by Covid like everybody else but then right as they were recovering there lost all investment from Usmanov due to the Russia Ukraine conflict.
Then they stayed on a strict spending plan in clear open communication with the league for the past 2 (3?) years where they were not allowed to buy players without selling to cover their cost in which time they made a net gain of 28M on transfers and stayed in the league.
They were already under strict transfer restrictions and I could even understand further punishment to uphold the rules but this is unfair. The past few years have been a struggle but they’ve done everything they’re supposed to and, if they had survived this season, looked like they might finally be on track to being okay again because of it.
But this is piss. Fucking arresting a homeless person for sleeping on the sidewalk type behaviour.
Why would anybody ever agree to comply with this investigation again? Looking at how it’s turned out for everybody else, it seems like Everton should’ve pumped up an even bigger bubble and spent even more so they wouldn’t have been in enough danger to get reasonably sued by the relegated clubs in the first place.
At this point it seems more likely we end up with a Big 10 than we are to go back to a Big 6.