Report: Everton face legal action if found guilty of breaching financial rules

Then watch them shut the fuck up.

Sue us for what? Because they got relegated?

It isn't as if they haven't invested millions in players and managers over the years.

And over the past 12-18 months, we have offloaded players and wages as well as generating income from sales (Richarlison & Gordon).

Are they going to look at Nottingham Forest who bought about 30 players? Chelsea, who despite Champions League income, which they have now lost, spent £600m last season on transfers?

I'll put this one in the out tray.

I think this investigation has been brought about by the clubs mentioned, so it's only natural that they are going to file lawsuits for loss of earnings, if Everton are found guilty.

The man who kept on giving, and the man who kept on taking. Kenwright and Moshiri, remind me of Ridsdale and O'Leary, I just hope Everton don't end up in as much financial mess as Leeds United did.

Don't shoot the messenger and all that but what the fuck is their agenda against us? Does Klopp have shares in it or something?

With our seedy board, I wouldn't take anything off the table sadly.

If City were to lose their appeal, would Liverpool and Arsenal sue for loss of a title?

Unless Forest deliberately “make a loss” of £40 to £50M over the next few seasons, will they be sued? As for Chelsea!

And while we're talking level playing fields, how do you account for West Ham leasing their ground at a peppercorn annual rent?

Having said all this, doesn't this further highlight the Board's incompetence!?

Who thought that putting a timescale on the future of the chairman was worthwhile, why didn't he go with the others, in other words – Moshiri, get a bleeding grip!

Their testimony could be nuclear with Mosh, BMD and the club vanishing into one big fuck off mushroom cloud.

Bring it on – time to start throwing some mud!

Simple as….

Maybe they should actually be happy that we looked so bad that they eventually seemed ill done by...

Gomes to Leeds, Gbamin to Burnley, Alli to Southampton, Maupay to Leicester.

Take it or leave it.

Also, why should all three of Leicester, Leeds and Southampton feel they should sue, when at least two of those three would have gone down with us? Maybe Coventry feel they should also sue us. Why? Well, fucked if I know… maybe because we finished fourth from bottom and they lost the playoff final. At the end of the day, we were better than all three relegated clubs – after all, the league table doesn't lie!

Have I just typed a pile of shite…z? Yes, just like the useless Guardian who have also published a bag of shite!!

The rate they are coming out of the woodwork to sue us, we may finally be compared to City!

The stress of following this club is simply off the charts. If we come out of the next few years intact, it'll be a miracle. If we don't, maybe building back up from the very bottom (à la Rangers) is the real way forward.

Hopefully, the Covid force majeure argument stands up, but we have got to stay well within the rules for the foreseeable future, whatever the outcome. Sales, no investment and prayers. Fuck you, Kenwright.

Round these buggers up and let them take an oath and try to wriggle out of it like the snakes they are. Transfer the hearing to Nuremberg and bring Albert Pierre Point back off the bench!!

The sheer mismanagement, the gross incompetence to put us in this position

Who the hell was minding the cash register in this period?? Talk about a dereliction of duty. If we haven't broken the rules, well we've somehow got the best lawyers in the country.

I'm no accountant but even I can work out that a £300M loss over 3 years is about £200M more than permitted.

Yes, we can hide behind write-offs and Covid but if you're spending £50M on Gylfi Sigurdsson and £30M on Yannick Bolaise and £30M on Michael Keane and £22M on Davy Klaassen and £20M on Cenk Tosun and £12M on Ashley Williams and £20M on Theo Walcott and £30M on Morgan Schneiderlin and so on, and you don't increase your revenues, then guess what?

You're gonna fall foul of the P&S Rules!!!

It's so obvious.

They're absolute clowns, that stupid lot, and they've stymied the club for years to come.

Completely right and a nice summary of all this shite.

And I'll sue you if you don't agree with me.

In all seriousness, causation would have to be established surely? Did Everton's inability to manage their financial affairs cause the other clubs to be utter shite too? That's a tough one to prove, isn't it? No sensible court would entertain it.

Also surely whoever sues us is going to have a really hard time convincing any judge that our overspending created an unfair advantage in our favour as it appears to have had the exact opposite effect and turned us into crap.

Guardian = Scum.

Seriously? Are we talking about the same paper?

Can we and all other English teams sue Liverpool for getting us banned from Europe for 5 years in 1985??

If Everton were guilty then either only one team can really claim against the club (Leicester who finished 18th) or, basically the whole league, the 19 other clubs. It's all a bit farcical… vultures they are.

By 25 October, most of it will be forgotten about. Everton will have done enough to placate the independent commission. Board changes, financial restructuring, the new stadium nearing completion, and a Premier League team.

There are too many vested interests to let Everton go down the swanie and the Premier League won't want clubs using in open court. There is an arbitration process which will be followed to limit upheavel.

Steaua Bucharest banners.

No class. Wave that in our face and then protest when we shout at them.

Thanks David!!

Brent, this one falls under the "general interest" category where it's worth posting as a headline piece because it's a) in a major daily newspaper (although, as we know, that doesn't count for very much these days) and b) everyone will be talking about it which means that our readers will want to discuss it as well.

If it's prefaced by "Report:.." I'm basically leaving it up to you, dear reader, to form your own opinion but not making any judgement as to its veracity.

The prevailing wisdom appears to be that this would open such a can of worms that it surely couldn't gain any traction, not least because of what rival clubs might do if Man City are found guilty on any of their 115 (!) counts of malfeasance.

Everton have been working with the Premier League for the best part of three years on their finances and have been under League-enforced austerity measures since the summer of 2021.

(I'm surprised, therefore, that the Premier League referred us to the independent commission in the first place.)

Additionally, I'm not sure how Southampton (who finished 13 points adrift of the next best-placed team above us) or Leeds (who would still have been relegated even if we'd gone down) have much of a leg to stand on here.

As I joked on Twitter, anyone looking at their respective situations could point out exactly why each of those clubs went down (Jesse Marsch, Javi Gracia, Nathan Jones... helloooo!) and it had nothing to do with Everton who were, arguably, only in the mire to begin with because they had no leeway to buy a proper striker due to Premier League restrictions.

Put simply, I don't expect this to go anywhere and if anyone gets sued, it would surely have to be the Premier League, not Everton.

This is a piece of somewhat investigative journalism and I don't detect any hint of bias here.

We are under investigation due to the incompetence of our owner, Chairman and previous board. If it were any other club, we would be applauding The Guardian for publicising this. If the board had done a better job, there would be no investigation, no case to answer, and no story for The Guardian to report upon.

What if we had been relegated while a club that finished a point above us had flouted Profitability and Sustainability rules?

As it stands, there is an investigation. Until we see the result of that investigation and the evidence presented, it is impossible to come to any conclusion as to our guilt. In the meantime, of course the media are going to report on the story.

The turn after the Greenwald incident was alarming but they still get a pass. Sportswise I've never really kept a book so I will take your word, Joe.

How so?

We are an absolute shit show. The management of this club from the ownership and board has been horrendous, and there is something dodgy about Moshiri's links with Usmanov.

Why should The Guardian ignore all that? Fans have been denouncing them for years, and complained that the board have been given a pass by mainstream media. (If you listen to TalkSport or Sky, they always repeat: "But the owner has put money in, what more do fans want?" And leave it at that.)

Fact of the matter is, the legacy of Moshiri and his board's utter incompetence is going to last long and deep.

It's a transfer embargo, points deduction and or a fine. I get they are not happy.

Will they sue Man City when they are found guilty? Because Southampton definitely would've finished above them if City had stuck to the rules!!!

Nah, do one!

What's that religious song, When Will I Be Relieved? – seems appropriate to us.

Surely any money we spent didn't help put these teams down. What a bunch of twats they are. Them and fucking Ancelotti.

MSP are fine. They have made us a loan and it's secured on the one sizeable viable asset we possess, a half-finished stadium.

But fuck me, I thought the season was bad with misery and stress every Saturday (and occasionally Sunday or Monday… and the mid-week games). The off-season has started even worse!

Is everyone queueing up to kick us when we're down now? What's next? Dele suing us for not giving him a fair chance? Levy suing us for not playing Dele 20 times? Cenk Tosun have an axe to grind? Moise Kean, get yourself a lawyer, son. We must have screwed you over somehow.

Roll on August when I can just stress once a week again.

I can't remember any other team trying legal action against them when they were proven to be up to no good.

1. Is there the possibility of clubs using the case to gain some form of competitve advantage? For example, weakening Everton further in order to have less competition long term for future places in the Premier League or financially cripple an opponent if the clubs return in future seasons? Could this possibility be why the rumour of Premier League clubs not be able to sue each other exists?

2. Where's the culpability of the Premier League after giving the club the okay last season? Didn't they need to approve any transfers?

3. If we are considering this season, how could Leicester, Leeds and Southampton claim any damage to their Premier League survival? We jettisoned £100M of players and did not replace them. Hence no damage could have impacted them from a competitive sense?

But by continuing to plant negative stories about us, the hope is that we run more scared, players don't want to come to us (not like they do to begin with), and in a best-case scenario for these other shit clubs they've made us look worse in the eyes of this independent commission.

In other words, a legitimate report based on cry-baby sources, intended to kick us when we're down, which amounts to a lot of nothing.

Just think how good we'll all feel when there's actual good news. Like Kenwright slinking off into the darkness.

The Sky Sports final day finale would have included the Old Baily as one of the locations, as Leicester responded to Doucouré's goal by requesting an emergency injunction to stop us finishing the game.

Absolute nonsense, and the latest example of The Guardian trying to flog an old story to death. If their various claims have any validity, then other news outlets would have picked up the story and run with it.

I'm not averse to this outcome per se. Would be nice to have the game back to something like being competitive. A salary cap would be nice too.

Secondly, I'm not sure that a Premier League rule against clubs suing each other has much standing as you cannot legislate yourself out of the legal system, unless of course you're a member of the Royal Family.

Whichever way you look at it, it is an awful mess and I wonder if any shareholders may have a case against the Board members at that time or the Premier League who were (are?) supposedly overseeing Everton's financial transactions.

Whatever, there certainly needs to be a review of the Premier League's P&S regulations – not least given the amount you can overspend over three seasons given the present cost of player transfer fees creating an unfair (pun intended) playing field.

You can not also say that Everton's alleged breaches gave them a competitive advantage. If that were the case, then Everton would be comfortably in the top half of the Premier League.

There is no correlation between money spent and performance. It comes down to luck, managerial skill and performance on the field.

That said, I am not a sports lawyer but I don't think any judge could make that reasonable determination.

If it wasn't serious, you couldn't help but laugh.

Let's kick good old Everton in the proverbial – Editor's choice. Nothing to report today about Ukraine, no rapes, no murders. We can't provide good news as it isn't the done thing.

What a load of bollocks!

I'm more concerned about our current lack of leadership than this.

I get this is under investigation and goes back a couple of years.

However.

We have been compliant with the Premier League.

Last year we spent about £80M on players coming in. But sold to the tune of about £100M. Not to mention those we offloaded on free transfers and loans.

Pathetic attempt to blame not achieving enough points to stay up.

Arsenal should sue Manchester City for winning the league.

Liverpool should sue everyone. Just for not liking or being Liverpool.

Stand your ground Everton and throw the stones back at them.

If it happens.

The buck stops with the board and the owner.

As we have seen with Newcastle another nation state club owner, when it looked like the government might step in and challenge their take over they warned the British government that if they did step in then Saudi Arabia would withdraw its defence contracts with the government worth billions, hence the government didnt challenge the take over. So if a nation owned football club can make the government of the 5th biggest economy back down what chance do UEFA or the premier league have of imposing rules that these nation state owned clubs don't agree with.

I think we can file the Guardian piece under sensationalist bilge. To think they still use “where the facts are sacred”.

Are Man Utd going to sue Man City for losing the FA cup.

Are Inter Milan going to sue Man City for losing the champions league?

Are Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal going to sue Man City for finishing 2nd behind City in the premier League?

THE ANSWER IS NO.

So why should it suddenly apply at the other end of the table to us. You are relegated after your own performance over a 38 game season. Not because we bought a few too many crap players.

Totally be used by the whole PL commission thing. The PL in general have basically run the clubs balance sheet entries for nearly three years. How can they do this and arnt they charging themselves ? But somehow the whole thing feels a bit less threatening points wise if it’s a tax issue though I suspect we’ve somehow linked the supposed-to-be-seperate- BMD finances to our PL issues as way of reducing ‘losses’ and the PL saw that as naughty and it’s that which sits at the heart of the current commission…..if any of this tosh is right then I really think it’s going to get very rough and can see at least 6 points and a transfer ban in January 24 on the way in the current season.

As for those other clubs suing us, basically if that is even allowed to go to court then as many here are pointing out, that’s a recipe for disaster in the league as any breach of any rules will lead to legal action, cue the breakaway six being sued and those poor hard up types at Man City being wide open to lots of trips to the Old Bailey…..

If we are found guilty and sanctioned, of course a relegated team has the option of suing us, and presumably the PL, to compensate for their commercial/competitive losses as a result of us staying up after breaking the rules at their expense.

We'd rightly do the same if the boot was on the other foot, wouldn't we?

That word 'if' is carrying a huge weight in the headline, though, because we may not be found guilty. We got 'assurances' didn't we?

Those alleged 'assurances' concern me far more than a close season newspaper headline.

Good point 👍

I detest this modern vogue of trial by media.

Lets hope we get this over and done with quickly and get back to the football.

We spent £1.7m for 21/22 and had to sell Richarlson before 22/23 and Gordon in Jan 23 and did not replace either. ( Maupay does not count ). We play a 37 year old right back. We sold Digne and replaced him with Mykolenko, who is not as good, when it comes to scoring goals and assists. We let James go who scored goals and created goals. We have Keane, Holgate and Godfrey who are not top defenders. Mina our best defender who was always injured and a defender on loan from Wolves. DCL who is our best forward but is always injured. 2 goalkeepers as subs most of the time, Rondon was on the pitch, ( I daren't say played for us ). Benitez and Lampard as managers for 18 months. Lets not forget, an incompetent board and an interfering owner. We wasted £750m. If you cannot compete against that then you deserve everything you get.

It is absurd. The media narrative is Man City are the greatest team ever and any questions are just unfounded sour grapes.

Just for perspective, Man City could be found innocent on 99 of the charges they are facing and still have twice as many cases remaining as Everton have. Or put another way, if we are found guilty of 100% of the charges facing us, that's the equivalent of City being found guilty of 0.99% of the charges facing them.

Additionally, while the media expect nothing to happen to them, we are being braced for a 10 points deduction, a transfer ban, and being sued my multiple parties. It's kind of like if you let Frederick West walk free, then hang draw, quarter and burn at the stake a man who let his dog poop on the street outside Frederick West's house.

And therefore it is utter nonsense – just papers trying to create drama where there is none. Let's not forget, a year ago Chelsea, were going to lose their license, be wound up by the government, etc etc. What happened? Nothing but a lot of naive people enjoyed reading salacious headlines for a few months.

It's Everton!

Relax? I try, for about 30 seconds!!

Sad to hear of the passing of Gordon McQueen.

We have been under special measures where they scrutinised all our financials for the last few seasons. With this in mind, it's difficult to see how we get sued for an irregularity they are culpable in.

It used to be journalists just reported the facts after verifying them but these days it's just constant bullshit and lies with an agenda against anyone who is in their sights.

We should have an independent review of the media with a governor to control these imbeciles.

I'm guessing most of them are rednoses or "Landanners" with a chip on their shoulder.

Wouldn't that depend on how open and honest ‘we' had been? If it wasn't hidden, then it's on them if they signed off on it; if deception was involved, then it would end up laid at our feet.

"And how do you plead, Mr Kenwright?"

Kenwright: "A funny thing happened with the handlebars on the way to the theatre, no, not of dreams but watersides, supermarkets and sewerage works, I met a man who offered me three beans for my cash kow..."

Maybe at this point we should just reflect on the massive bullet we just dodged. I think we were a whisker away from going out of business.