Statement from Director of Football, Kevin Thelwell

We will be there on Sunday. I truly believe it will be a very special atmosphere.

Let's show everyone what being an Evertonian means.
COYB

Why don't each and every one of us send an e.mail, letter or text to those corrupt nonentities at the Premier League offices telling them that – politely of course. And send them coordinated: same time, same day – flood them.

Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two … always. Coyb.

The culprits are obvious. They have run like rats deserting the ship with their millions intact (maybe apart from our owner).

Good luck to him, and Dyche. We need to rally around them.

Send the message that this is and will be seen to be unfair and given the treatment, or lack thereof, of others is grossly prejudicial.

Appreciate all the points so far achieved rather than ruing the removal of those points.

I am surprised that we are not on bail conditions, given this ‘kangaroo court' want ultimate power over us. Perhaps tag the players, staff and board?

Return our 10 points immediately, as we have appealed and therefore, we are innocent until proven guilty.

Lynn, it is good to hear from the club. And as DoF, it's part of his job, so credit for him. The role is the link between the leaders, the manager, team and supporters. Good on him. I have no doubt that Goodison and the streets around her will be a cauldron come Sunday afternoon.

Paul, totally, it's unconditional, no matter what is thrown at us.

Mark, to my previous. I don't disagree and have a dim view (that's diplomatic) of our (non) leadership. I, like others, have done for some time. Your last sentence says it all. It's all about the team, the manager and now, seemingly being lead by the DoF. And the most important component. The hurting supporters who will come out fighting - not literally or physically.

Alan - fight it. We have to fight it whatever the outcome.

But right now, all we can do is focus on the pitch.

So why did the panel order Everton to suffer an immediate deduction of 10 points? There is nothing in paragraph 139 of the decision explaining how they got to that figure.

Was it 6 for the threshold breach, then 1 point per £5M (or part thereof) over the £105M threshold. The threshold is described as being generous. The problem to me is that – if you are a pound under the threshold, no penalty – a pound more: 6 points?

Maybe this is why they did not explain their thinking but I guess they would say "Tough! Those are the rules". The commission say stadium costs are not attributable to the PSR difficulties. Maybe so from a pure accounting point of view but surely they should have accepted the point that, if Moshiri had not gone ahead with the stadium, he would not have borrowed £176M for working capital and crucially incurred the interest charges. This is, as they have said, a very wealthy man.

The commission say the cause was overspending on players and inability to sell others. However, earlier they said (para 104) Everton may have taken unwise risks but it did so in the mistaken belief that it would achieve PSR compliance.

Having found that, and having then crucially said: it is not a case of a deliberate breach — and having earlier said Everton did not act dishonestly, why did the panel award a 10-point deduction?

The commission in its summary it seems in Para 139 to have forgotten those findings. It describes the position as being of Everton's own making. It says the culpability is great. It says it was the result of Everton irresponsibly taking a chance. It talks of Everton being less than frank over the stadium interest issue.

It seems to me these findings contradict the crucial finding of fact that Everton did not deliberately breach the rules. Indeed, in awarding the points deduction, it seems to me that the panel suggest an element of dishonesty in the "less-than-frank" comment and treated Everton as if they did deliberately set out to break the rules.

The commission state quite clearly at the end of para 138 Everton failed to manage its finances and its mismanagement led to the threshold being breached. Other than taking into account Everton's PSR trend between 2018 and 2022 was positive, no other mitigation was allowed to Everton.

To me, these are the crucial points of any appeal. This panel has given Everton the penalty the Premier League were in reality after and said what the Premier League wanted — that it was a serious breach that required a significant penalty.

So was it really more serious than going into administration? Was it really worse than West Ham did when they signed Tevez, broke the rules, and admitted they acted dishonestly?

These rules were introduced in 2013 and came into effect in 2015. Had the level of the threshold gone up by the rate of inflation to the end of 2022 from 2013 then Everton would not have been in breach.

How can this really be said to be a serious breach requiring such a significant penalty? It means our fantastic away fans who travelled to Brentford, West Ham and Crystal Palace and saw us win there and take a point at Sheffield United have to accept that we must lose the 10points we won.

How can that be said to be a penalty that fits a 'crime' where we did not act dishonesty and where we did not set out deliberately to break the rules??? I hope to goodness our lawyers are playing at the level required at the appeal and the new panel hearing that appeal act fairly and take some account of the people this penalty is really hitting, namely our fans.

My first post on ToffeeWeb — but maybe not my last!

Time for you to come out of retirement and add your experienced legal voice to the business comments of Paul ‘the Esk' Quinn (no relation, I assume ?).

Thank you for an excellent analysis of the 10-point sanction that was so egregiously absent from the commission's report.

As a retired lawyer can you explain to a layman like myself why our KC didnt articulate the points you have raised. Many posters have raised many points that seem to have been glossed over by the commission, and for me losing your main sponsor would have an effect on any club.

I just hope that our legal team are better prepared than the team who defended us in the initial hearing.

I would imagine that our legal team would have had notification of the charges weeks if not months before this commission sat to consider the charges. So I cant really believe a KC would not have explored all the relevant mitigating circumstances, which doesnt fill me with much confidence if he is leading the appeal.

The thing I find most puzzling is Everton have quite rightly appealed and a new panel will hear the appeal. Now if there are any significant changes to the original decisions, then why would the original panel be allowed to decide if any clubs can make a compensation claim. Surely those on the appeal panel should be the sole arbiters of such a decision because there decision is final.

Eat your heart out, Kevin Sheedy!

The report claims to have involved all stakeholders. I would appreciate an explanation from the commission why no supporters groups where invited to give evidence — after all, we are the ultimate stakeholders.

It is time we took back control and started making football fun again.

Gary Neville is basically saying the same thing as Peter is saying in his brilliant post @ (11).

The more people who criticise and condemn The Commissions verdict the better it should be for us at the appeal as long as our representatives are a lot more competent than they were facing The Commission.

Wise comments Stephen. It's about the supporters.

On that note, are we convening before Sunday?

The point where they state the level of punishment, point 139, is notable in its brevity and amounts to very little more than a number plucked out of thin air, a matter of opinion rather than a level backed by rules or precedent. That is where an appeal has some potential for success. Personally, I wouldn't re-argue the mitigation or extent of the breach. I think we are on dodgier ground there.

How we go about doing that is moot. In a sense, we will have to somehow demonstrate that a different level of punishment (points deduction) is more reasonable and, other than our own opinions, we have not a lot of basis to do that.

Maybe the best route would be to use the 9-point deduction for administration as a baseline and argue that a non-intentional (albeit stupid) breach cannot be punished worse than that.

"Maybe the best route would be to use the 9 points deduction for administration as a baseline and argue that a non-intentional (albeit stupid) breach cannot be punished worse than that."

Excellent yardstick and rationale, Mark.

The call for government independent regulation is now being shouted from the mountain tops.

As we fight against this and make our way clear it will become obvious the Premier League regulatory framework is anything but clear. That discussion will be a problem for them.

The more they are forced to endure criticism, the more likely a Premier League representative makes the mistake of trying to explain this decision. Then it gets a bit more fun.

Mark (23) - so does that mean you'd be happy with a 9-point deduction?

I think Peter's point about the points deduction coming in at a nonsensical starting point of 6 has the most weight.

Administration won't, in reality, hinge potentially on a matter of a couple of pounds (or pennies???) either way so the 9 points starting point can't easily be argued with, but going from 0 to 6 points deduction at the threshold is not supported by any reasonable logic is it?

1 for the actual breach and then 1 for each 5 million above and beyond makes much more sense, so maximum of 5 is what I'd argue for.

Superb post. What a pity you cannot be seconded onto the Everton legal team for the appeal.

I hope you continue to post and find some mechanism to get your thoughts to those that count here - the future of Everton FC in the short and medium term depends on all of us, supporters, club officers, or hired professionals in my view.

It's pretty simple really – Portsmouth went into administration and got deducted 9 points, so how can we be given a 10 point deduction for a lesser crime?

Surely it has to be less than 9 points, and I would suggest if our 10 points is reduced reduced by half to 5 points, that we'd do well to accept that.

Again it's all rather arbitrary in my view, so perhaps 6 points would also be acceptable. That equates to 2 wins, which seems more sensible to me.

I'd be 10% happier than it being 10.

Joking aside, what was lacking from P.139 of the findings was a serious rationale, largely through lack of precedent. The published tariff for administration is just about the only viable one available and, as James says above, one we might be able to use to our advantage. I hope so.

https://edm.parliament.uk for those 22 MPs who have supported to date. EDM No 79.

I have also emailed the marketing departments of all the listed Premier League sponsors expressing my horror that they are supporting such a corrupt organisation.

In the light of day, surely these trumped charges can be challenged, but who will be chairing the Appeal Case, when it's scheduled?

That's a concern.

UTFTs!

The sporting advantage was predicated upon Everton spending 19.5 million over and above what was allowed.

The fact that we blew that advantage is irrelevant.

We were incompetent in managing our finances, but we honestly thought we could still comply with the 105M limit. But the costs that we had factored in/out were incorrect, due to our incompetence in assessing appropriate exclusions.

We were even open enough to approach the league when we thought there was a risk that we couldn't comply because of the treatment of the stadium pre-planning costs and were able to get a ruling that we could exclude those costs. Unfortunately our incompetence again meant that those figures were incorrect. They included a very generous interpretation of the treatment of interest on loans that weren't for the stadium. That interpretation really should have been disclosed to the league at the point of the ruling. It looks very much like we tried to gloss over that particular element. Less than frank indeed.

I think when they say "not dishonest" they actually mean "incompetent". When they say "less than frank", well that means what they say!

As for the points deduction, it seems to be just a case of "now, how many points will effectively punish and deter?". And they decided 10 would do that.

Yes, it's completely arbitrary. 10 points seems a lot. It raises the question to me that if that is the maximum (and it's got to be pretty close), then what benefit is there to a club in trying to do the right thing if they're going to breach anyway? For example, if we hadn't sold Richarlison on the cheap in a desperate attempt to comply or reduce the size of the breach, would we have been hit for more than 10 points? I doubt it - and the argument therefore extends that we might have been better off keeping Richarlison and just accepting the 10 points.

The punishment therefore doesn't deter. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

Alternatively, if the punishment is really going to be proportional to the breach... Then they're going to paint themselves into a massive corner with some of the clubs they've got multiple charges against.