From Founder Member to Sacrificial Lamb. Should Everton's points penalty be reversed on appeal?

"Everton seem to have taken their punishment on the chin and got on with matters. No-one is doubting that if a club breaks the rules, then they also deserve sanctions. However, to ensure the integrity of the game remains intact, football fans need to be absolutely sure that if other clubs are found guilty of similar practices, they must be punished in proportion to their offences."

Nice to see these points being made in the media.

The point I was making really is that it's nice to see more comments in the media here and there asserting that it should be one (rule) for all not just one for EFC - the unspoken inference of course being that we have been hit bloody hard.

And you're right - it is a carefully structured comment.

He has Pickford as his GK choice and makes somewhat supportive references in those comments as well. He clearly thinks we are hard done to as I read it.

The biggest thing I take out of your piece is something that has been mentioned time after time - the "independent" commission.

All the legal eagles come from the same chamber how on God's given earth can that in any way shape or form constitute "independent"

Surely like all professions, the legal world is just a boy's only Club, with the odd few females thrown in to make it more acceptable to these day's of wokery.

I cannot believe that a group of guys working together who know each other intimately, no doubt enjoying each others company at work and socially, and could at various times be working together on various committees be impartial.

I believe regardless of all the excellent point you and others far more knowledgeable than most of us in these matters mention, the only path for us as a Club is self help.
Dyche and the players have to get points on the board, get us in to mid table and hope further punishment does not put us back down

1) Is it the case that the CEO and CFO actually refused to testify? Or were they not asked to? If the former, I'm truly astonished that a requirement to do so was not included in the agreement for their allegedly very large severance pay.

2) Given there is no published tariff at all, I think we would be right to question whether a points penalty fits not just the crime, but also the intent of P&S, which by its name, suggests it is to avoid clubs getting into financial problems and going bust. That would imply mandatory cost control is the remedy.

3) If we are to receive a points sanction on the basis of enhanced performance, that would surely have consider what our typical cost per point actually is. For 21-22 we had £225M of costs for 39 points, so a cost of £5M or so per point. If we are less than £20M over the £105M limit, that would equate to roughly 4 points – 1 point per season – which could be argued was our sporting advantage.

Point 3 might be a convoluted way of looking at calculating the points deduction that is appropriate. In fact, even I can see the holes in it. But did the commission have a better way? Is there in fact a better way than merely plucking a figure from thin air?

If we can't get success on 2), a 4- or even 5-point penalty under a version of 3) would be handy. If we can get a detailed agreed calculation, it would also undermine the compensation claims of the other clubs.

I still think we are somehow a test case for the work they have yet to undertake with City and Chelsea. If we can game that out wisely without aggressively embarrassing anyone while legitimately questioning process, we win. I would avoid any request to redress the ruling on the Ukraine war. That is our price of risk for getting in bed with an oligarch, let them have that.

I will return to your work here continually until the noise in my head over this begins to fade. Thank you once again for this, I thought I would just have to carry a load of anxiety until another ruling. Now I can, as you say, dispassionately work through enough to get some peace of mind. We are not a bad club damnit!

The mitigation being dismissed casually out of hand.

The briefing both publically by the Premier League and in the statement by Masters for a 12-point deduction.

The fact that they had no specific punishment for this – it was kind of put in place in August but on the rules outside the Premier League where Andy Burnham has established that the Premier League (the clubs themselves) did not vote for.

Citing Sheffield Wednesday when again different league and different set of circumstances.

The changes from the Premier League whilst dealing with Everton as Peter mentions, which I didn't know.

The indisputable disproportionate penalty for which administration, seemingly the worst-case scenario, would be just 9 points.

The independent Commission ruling that a financial penalty would not be appropriate as we have a "wealthy owner"! – which is laughable anyway because he is selling up but at odds with the penalty laid down to the Super League 6 teams, who are all with wealthy owners, more so than Everton.

The fact that we apparently had no sporting advantage – we did not deliberately plan to go over the spending – and yet we are given a sporting punishment, not a financial one. Ludicrous.

I'm sure Everton's legal team will be able to pick holes in this.

That's just from what I can see. I'm sure there is more but I would take Andy Burnham's point of view that this is an 'abuse of process'. The actions of the Premier League in how they have handled this and clearly steered the commission into basically only being able to make one decision. Their decision based on false statements from Masters.

Reading stuff from yourself, Lyndon and Andy Burnham I cant help wondering what our official representatives are being paid for.

The "independent" commission who have given us the 10-point deduction and say other clubs have called for a financial fine are the same shysters who will look at the potential financial fine!

The same mob will be put in place for our appeal.

The whole thing stinks. Stinks of ego and corruption.

The only acceptable outcome would be a financial decision and not a points deduction.

Once this sham is over, we must do everything we can to get the corrupt mob at the Premier League out.

For 30 years, they have presided over a competition which pays a bonus for league position. Only a handful of clubs have won the Premier Leage Title, with three interlopers who crashed the party, so the most money has gone to that handful of clubs,

They took very little action over the handful of clubs that have won the Premier League plus Spurs when they decided to really clean up and swell their bank accounts even more in the greed-filled European Super League. The Premier League and their paymasters are happy to see a league which only concerns 6 clubs and sod the also-rans to pick up the crumbs.

It is a complete and utter joke that they want to continue the status quo and punish any club that spends money trying to break in to the Premier League's elite. (I thought 'elite' was an illumination device in Wigan!)

It is anti-football, until money took over, half the old 1st Division started the season with hopes of winning the league but now three-quarters of the Premier League are hoping not to get relegated.

Re your summary regarding the Premier League initially treating us fairly and then changing its mind, that is documented at para 76 and goes to the heart of the case. Everton had claimed back interest on stadium loans where the loans had actually come from Moshiri and there was no interest on them in the first place.

We then changed our submission to say if EFC had taken out a loan specifically for the stadium, Moshiri would have paid the commercial loans back and therefore, we were entitled to a return of interest for the equivalent payments on the stadium.

This argument was somewhat undermined by Everton submitting the loan agreements to the tribunal with clauses that said, specifically, they could only be used for operational matters (not the stadium project). The Premier League felt Everton had been misleading in its submission to them previously.

I do not expect any of this detail to change at appeal. It is surely now only about the 10 points which is obviously not proportionate – the need for which the commission acknowledges at para 91. The commission did not detail any reasoning it used to get to 10 points and, as you point out, 9 points is used in the case of insolvency.

Together with the policy document issue that Burnham highlights with the commission coming to the same answer as the Premier League, the points decision will, I'm sure, be overturned but replaced with what, I don't know.

What sticks in my craw is that Everton (naively?) allocated the Metro Bank and R&MF loans (ostensibly taken out for the stadium build, capital expenditure!) to current expenditure not capital expenditure (ie, not to the stadium build); that gave us no sporting advantage but we are penalised through the interest from those loans being included in calculations of our general current expenditure.

There would have been no sporting advantage if, as you would have expected, we had allocated the loan interest to the stadium build, and used Moshiri's loan for current expenditure. Instead we pointlessly(?) allocated Moshiri's interest-free loan to stadium development.

All this seems to have been merely an accounting quirk on Everton's part, with no sporting advantage in what we did, but all pain through the Commission's points penalty - for a so-called sporting advantage.

Do I understand that correctly?

Yes, you are substantially correct.

The reason Moshiri's loans went to stadium pay down was the commercial bank loans had clauses specifying they were to be used for operational purposes only. The Premier League lawyers used our own submissions to point this out.

To be honest, naive might be pushing it and to try to obscure things as to what we were trying to do is a lot closer to stupid!

Reading your very detailed post, what comes across is that we should have employed David Pannick who you describe as the Lionel Messi of the bar who is also representing Man City in their case with the Premier League.

I noted that you were concerned as to Everton pleading guilty to the breach which they initially disputed. Unless I have misunderstood, you reckon that made it easier for the commission?

Your posts along with Andy Burnham's 2nd letter to the commission certainly highlight some flaws in the commission's findings.

What I find unfair both to Everton and the clubs involved in the relegation battle is the reports are that this commission when it does finally meet to consider the appeal may not make a decision until quite late in the season.

So, if they don't publish their decision till say April and Everton get a reduction of the original deduction, that could put another club in trouble with just a handful of games left.

The concern is what actually went on at the hearing, which has not yet been made public. Only the result of the inquiry.

What arguments were put forward by Everton (besides the accountants being stupid)?

Also in the narrative we are told "The members of Blackstone Chambers representing the clubs seeking compensation from Everton" — is this actually a thing? Are Leeds, Leicester and Burnley seeking legal advice to pursue a claim for compensation? If so, we need to be told the basis of the claim (Blackstone Chambers must know) and the amount of compensation they are seeking.

The last point I would make is there has been no mention of Usmanov in all of this, and I am surmising the majority of Moshiri's money came from him. Was he involved in any of the underhand accountancy practices? Did he encourage them?

I doubt much of the hearing or that of the appeal will be put into the public domain, although it might be interesting for some people to see how things were presented.

We'll get the headlines and the Commission's reports, but I can't see much of the nuts and bolts of the whole shebang, ever seeing the light of day.

If ever there was a time for everyone to add their bit, no matter how small, to the general weight of feeling being generated, it has to be now before the appeal commission sits.

I'm sure many on here and elsewhere will have taken this step, but I recently had an email exchange with my MP in West Lancs, Ashley Dalton. I was left in no doubt as to Ashley's sympathy for our cause (happy to put up emails if anyone interested) and she sent me a copy of an email she sent to The Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

I'm pretty sure there will have been lots of similar letters gone in, but surely the more the better so if you haven't written why not give it a shot. Thanks to Ashley for her support:-
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_uGxbKX0AAR3l8?format=jpg&name=large

I am no legal expert, but we should push this through.

It is over the top and seems not very well thought out. Almost a decision made on a whim. Finger in the air type of stuff.

Great letter from Ashley to back up Andy Burnham.

Keep fighting, Everton. On and off the pitch.

If they (the Premier League) don't back down, they are making a rod for their own back and have to proportionally do the same to others.

Perhaps we are being used as an example knowing we would appeal, dropping it way down to (guessing 3 points) therefore setting a precedent to give Man City and Chelsea a hit that won't relegate the Premier League darlings and again have an uneven playing field. With Man City as an example, doc 25 points (in lieu of our 3) they could still qualify for Europe.

Fucking bastards.

Just to embolden concerns raised in your assessment:

1) The independence of the panel – we had no chance of a fair hearing when the whole aim of this is to demonstrate the might of the Premier League in being able to sort its house out via conflicted individuals, planted to deliver a pre-ordained outcome.

2) The legitimacy of the process – set up by the Premier League to preserve its commercial interests and disregard any considerations of sporting integrity.

3) Shifting sands – the rules set up after the investigation had commenced, if one would be paranoid, this might seem like it was being manipulated.

4) The ludicrously disproportionate penalty, beyond the much graver transgression of administration, or the setting up of a breakaway league.

5) The lack of consistency in the pace of our investigation compared to that of others.

6) The fact that these rules are probably being broken monthly and by many clubs, but it's so murky it's impossible to see this ever being controlled.

Tell any Blackburn fan of a certain age that Jack Walker was a sporting fraud who destabilised the league, distorted the transfer system and bought the title. There may be an element of truth in that but I would strongly expect each and every Rovers fan would tell you to fuck right off. And I'd be right behind them.

As I understand it, no, it's the interest on the other loans that is disallowable. I believe what we were trying to do was put the entire interest arising from the £250M or so loans as an interest charge against the stadium and so deductible.

Unfortunately the loan agreements we signed did not support that use, it was for general working capital. Interest (or the reduction in it for the other loans) on a £30M loan wouldn't come close to the £19.5M we are over.

This is the mismanagement that got us into the deep hole. Wages and salaries accounted for about 96% of the club income. Paul Quinn argued repeatedly that it was not sustainable, particularly with the high loan interest. The shit was going to hit the fan sooner or later.

Our appeal can only be about the size of the penalty.
It is not a good idea to attack the credibility of the commission, Donald Trump is in the process of proving that.

The owner and boardroom should be held to account for their mismanagement down the years. The docked points should be removed and replaced by a financial penalty – one that Mr Moshiri is told to pick up the tab. The other board members and Mr Everton get off scott free.

I'm not commenting on how clean or otherwise the Premier League is but in terms of the distribution of finance, it is the best model in Europe. The difference in payment between the team at the bottom and the team at the top is 1.6 (ie, position 1 gets 1.6 times that of position 20).

Reality is there's ways around this. TV appearances etc. But this is being eroded as more and more games are shown on TV. Next TV deal has 270 of the 380 games shown live in UK. (In overseas territories, all 380 games are shown live as part of the rights package.)

The problem for years has been related to the overseas TV deal, which is split equally between the 20 clubs. Certain clubs (no prizes for guessing) have been regularly trying to force a change to give them more as they are more of a global brand. There's an argument of sorts there, but there's limited ways to measure it – and to date they haven't been able to get the 14 votes to carry it.

The Premier League wasn't angry about the Super League Six — they were shit scared about what it potentially meant. That's why they are clear to distance our punishment with any for Chelsea and Man City.

All of this is because we've been poor in relative terms for most of the Premier League's life, and when we did get moderately rich, we pissed it up the wall. Man City, remember, were in tier 3 not so long ago.

Sadly, I fear the Premier League will find a mechanism to give the big teams more revenue and leeway, and the other clubs will get bought off in some way, which in hindsight will prove the death of competition.

I do wish the "Super 6" had pissed off to the European "Super" League, but I only wish they'd taken the Premier League with them. Sadly, Uefa had more money to lose than even the Premier League.

I made a very similar point a few days ago and asked the question does anyone know actually how much has been spent since Moshiri arrived in compensation to sacked managers and their respective teams, incentives to lure them and so on? I'd be very surprised if it was not more than the amount by which we have transgressed.

As you say – management ineptitude exemplified.

I believe it is justifiable to question the credibility of the commission.

The Premier League and others are continually pushing the independence of the commission, however, how can it be when both sides and all involved are from the same source?

KCs and lawyers all from the same Chambers. All working with each other on a daily basis. Why would these well paid legal flunkeys bite the hand that feeds them?

How can a result be fair if nobody has seen how that result was determined?

How can another independent commission be charged to look in to potential third-party financial claims when it is the exact commission that said there was a case to be brought in the first hearing?

No sorry, Ed, in my opinion, there is no “independence” in this kangaroo court and once this sham is over, Masters and the Premier League should be cleaned and cleared out.

Problem is, our sentence will stand and Man City, Chelsea et al will benefit from a cleaner regime.

Farhad Moshiri knows £50m Roberto Martinez truth with Everton mistakes clear

It'd certainly be a multiple of our £19.5M transgression. The staggering cost of a staggering level of mismanagement.

I wonder also if it includes whatever we would have paid to the various flotsam and jetsam that each manager brings with him as part of his team. I guess they have contracts as well.

It's all honestly near to tear-inducing. Thank God (and Moshiri, I suppose we must concede), for the stadium, even if it is a further financial millstone at this time.

Paul the Esk & Co discussed this point in last weekend's 'Talking the Blues' podcast.

In the interests of fairness to all clubs, ideally the appeal should be heard and decision announced before the start or close of the January transfer window as the position of Everton many impact spending decisions of other clubs in the window.

However ,given the speed of these things, that looks unlikely. Paul speculated that it could be February or March before the outcome is known (which sounds a long time, but February is only 8 weeks away).

Should Paul be right and the decision on the appeal is not published till March, it could have a major impact on clubs in and around the relegation zone.

Hopefully, even with the 10-point deduction, let's hope we aren't in a relegation position. I think we should carry on as if there will be no reduction in the 10-point deduction, and plan accordingly.

As far as the January transfer window, I doubt it will affect us as we have no money to spend, and I know Paul has suggested that we are sailing close to the wind on breaking the P&S rules when this year's figures are published just before Christmas.

Also a report said that the appeal panel could take that into account if we have again transgressed P&S rules.

I hope this intelligent research, writing and challenging can contribute to a more just outcome. Thanks to everyone concerned.

We are fighting for our very existence as historic members of the Football Leagues and Association, with a fanbase as good as any other team, if not better.

However, it looks like that counts for nothing as avarice presides over the current Premier League and its co-conspirators, who seek to rule in a totalitarian style, dictatorial and subservient.

Never stop fighting this regime, until such time that we have our name and pride restored, over what appears to be a minor transgression and misdemeanour.

Possible danger of unreasonable hopes here because of preaching to the converted.

They will have worked through this extensively already and probably taken legal advice too.

However, the simple argument supporting it is we, eventually, admitted we broke the rules. You can question if it was £8M or £19.5M but my understanding is the rules say you could be deducted 12 points for breaking £105M losses, so why not 10?

I note that the Premier League's own statement of principles states they will be "Fair: Being objective, responsible and trustworthy. Safeguarding the integrity of the game. Thinking of tomorrow when making decisions for today."

I'd say that in this situation they are anything but!

So, much as with us and, if they are a precedent, one for hope. It's not a case of reopening all our previous mitigation arguments, it's simply excessively severe.

We do have one new significant argument. That of the Premier League Sanction Policy and its retrospective application along with all the questions of who, how, when was this devised and published, and is it watertight?

This is one the Premier League probably doesn't want to open as it appears to be made up on the back of a fag packet. Maybe this will be the bargaining chip.

The simple answer is surely out there already: breaching the £105M threshold = 6 points… plus 1 point for every £5M (or part thereof) you are over the threshold.

That's the Premier League's formula and that's what the independent commission did.

But they wanted to appear "independent" –and may have already foreseen the problem with the Premier League developing sentencing guidelines deep into the process – so they expressly said they weren't following that formula.

But they strangely… maybe deliberately… provided no other rationale. Leaving a gaping hole for the appeal lawyers to jump into, as the commission perhaps recognized that the Premier League had unduly influenced and compromised their so-called independence.

Or is that otherwise known as "Wishful Thinking" on my part?

Only in football do two wrongs appear to make a right, and this is something that we are witnessing most weeks now.

I'd like to think it's ineptitude, but sometimes I get the feeling that some things have already been pre-conceived, but maybe I'm just a paranoid schizophrenic when it comes to understanding modern-day football and the idle technology, which is seemingly tampering with the game beyond a lot of my previous recognitions.

"My understanding is the rules say you could be deducted 12 points for breaking £105M losses."

That's not something I recall seeing specifically stated in the rules, John, but you could say it's one of the myriad outcomes that could be levied upon us as the rules do say that they can punish us in whatever way they see fit.

I'm not sure I agree with some of your points regarding the hearing itself. For example, I didn't think that we argued the invasion of Ukraine cost us loans. We argued that our future naming rights deal with USM was being renegotiated to take effect before the stadium was built. That sounds like a very, erm, creative mitigation. It doesn't pass the pub test.

And on stadium interest, the way it was tested wasn't really an error. We admitted that even if we had thought to capitalise it, we wouldn't have done so.

The 10 points is the focus for our appeal. We're guilty, we have limited mitigation... but 10 points is a very severe punishment. That's about all we can muster.

I'm still undecided on whether the punishment really needs to be less than the administration punishment. A deduction for administration isn't any statement on sporting advantage. It's to deter clubs from entering that particular situation whereby they fob off their creditors with pennies on the pound.

My reaction is the commission attempt at independence boils down to swerving the 12-point deduction.

Seems likely the Premier League formula was used and their counter will be: "We like Everton, they're a doozey, so we knocked a couple of points off the penalty. No idea what they're moaning about, m'lud?"

I think the article's author has got confused about the treatment of interest. Which is not surprising as it's tackled in various parts of the report and isn't always clear.

In his timeline he states that in March 22 Everton submit PSR (presumably for 20/21) incl £17.4m interest.

This is not stated in the report. Indeed in Paragraph 32 it's clear that Everton changed the way it reported interest in March 22 and it impacted the 2022 accounts.

In fact £17.4m is first mentioned in Paragraph 33. In August 22 Everton submitted a FY22 PSR submission. This is obviously a draft submission for 21/22.

The timeline is complicated by a referral in paragraph 72 to the PL agreeing that interest can be deducted. They subsequently changed their view when they fully understood Everton's treatment.

It's unclear what they were agreeing in April 22 (or the quantum).

The whole question of interest is confusing but it seems clear that it is Everton that changed treatment (and calculations) through the time period.

The reason Everton were “less than frank” was in claiming the loans related to the stadium when that is clearly not the case.

One last point:

We sacked Benitez in Jan 22 at a cost of £10.5m.

It's bizarrely not mentioned in the report but it's clear that we paid that knowing we might breach and that decision almost certainly kept us up.

Sorry, another point:

There is a big question about whether our initial 2022 PSR submission was made in good faith.

The Commission for the appeal should have already have been chosen, and the date set in stone, but oh no, the Premier League will drag this out as long as it can, because 'X' accounts similar to EFCTRUTH and other media outlets, will keep chipping away until we and the club celebrate only suffering the initial 10 points.

We've had “the Everton case is not at all similar to what Man City have done and therefore we've kicked it into the long-grass”. We've had “the Everton punishment is possibly unfair but, so long as other clubs suffer the same fate, it's okay” routine.

Let's be straight here, we shouldn't accept any points deduction for the club's wrongdoing, only one person should carry the can for this and that's the owner, he should be made accountable and some of the money that he manages to get from the sale of Everton should be used to pay a whopping fine and the points be immediately put back on Everton's tally. They can also make a statement that disbars Moshiri from having any influence on any football club in England for life. That would be fair… that would be proportionate.

The attempted formation of a European Super League has been well discussed but what about behaviour of Manchester United fans forcing the game v Liverpool to be postponed? No action.

There is a clear rule, supposedly enforced by law, that clubs are not allowed standing areas and yet Liverpool and Man Utd fans continually deliberately stand throughout their matches (in the Kop and Stretford End) and yet the Premer League don't sanction the clubs for this. I know the rules are being loosened in this regard but those clubs have stuck the middle finger up at the Premier League for years.

I think we know where the power lies so don't get your hopes up about this appeal.

Premier League – corrupt as Fuck.

I'm assuming "less than frank" means we lose brownie points with the Commission. Whereas Man City are being accused of actually cooking the books which is a Premier League charge.

Everton have pleaded guilty, they expected a punishment to be meted out. I doubt even the most pessimistic among the movers and shakers at the club expected the club to be docked any, never mind so many points.

I and most of the Evertonians that I know, agree that we are bang to rights, but all of them agree that the points deduction is a step too far, for what after all, was a financial breach.

People can argue until they're blue or even red in the face about the merits of what Everton presented in the accounts and how they presented it; however, I will continue to contend that a financial penalty should have been the only punishment, perhaps added to with a suspended points deduction, to act as a deterrent for further possible breaches.

Moshiri should be made to pay for his awful leadership of the club, during his seven years at Goodison, but he won't, he'll walk away with some money, perhaps not as much as he might have liked, when he eventually sells the club.

In a few years time, even if it takes that long, he'll forget he was even involved with the destruction of the club's hard won reputation and who knows, perhaps, the actual destruction of it, a club that has been around for nearly 150 years.

A sporting penalty does not fit the bill, it never did, and it never will, regardless of whether the owner and his cohorts were less than frank about what they presented and how.

I can't understand the idea that it should only be a financial punishment. It makes no sense to me. The rules have been put in place to either stop clubs being reckless with their future, or to stop rich owners from spending whatever they want on their play thing. If it's a financial penalty that doesn't dissuade the latter.

Can you imagine if Man City were offered a financial penalty for spending their owner's money? They'd go out and spend billions and then happily cough up a fine.

It may well be true that the club didn't expect a points deduction, but that just further indicates their recklessness. The owner and anyone else who was complicit.

I would drag Little Miss Dynamite out in a headlock from wherever she is hiding and ask for a public explanation of how she oversaw such a mess.

Fine the owner and the board, don't punish the fans who have done nothing wrong. If I commit a crime I shall be punished, not my family.

Will be happy if we get 4 points back, doubt we will do better than that. It has to be less than 9 points for administration, that's common sense, but then again.