‘Making it up as they go along’

The new independent regulator should start with a clean slate and a transparent set of rules.

The treatment of Everton is despicable and stinks the place out.

There is no place for Masters and the sooner he and his cronies are removed and banned from football management and governance, the better.

My contempt for the Premier League management team is total. Man City have done 15 years of taking the piss. They should be serving a ban from first-class football for decades.

I hope Everton can get through this season and start afresh in the summer. Hopefully with a genuine CEO and new owner.

Hope eternal.

Something had to be done about the game and someone had to be guinea pigs as no defacto process appeared to exist; it just so happened to be us.

However inadvertent, the joint venture betwixt the powers that be and Everton have now come up with a model to be applied to all guilty parties, Forest being the first.

"Conspiracy" will only apply if other guilty parties are not treated the same way but, until then, peeps are just howling at the moon.

Jim Ratcliffe, the tax exile strike breaker, is a strange bedfellow for a man of the people.

As for national stadium. I'd disagree on that. I've commented many times that the national team should be taken around the country at different stadiums as they do in Germany.

If there is going to be a national stadium of the north, then it would be the new Everton Stadium.

This is one of the steps that have degraded the FA Cup, starting with Man Utd dropping out in 2000? to play in the World Championship.

Strange that Andy who has been so outspoken on the Premier League's approach in Everton's case, didn't take the time to read the Forest judgement in order to allow him to form a view on that very question.

Or perhaps it isn't that strange?

If they deviate much from the present set-up and clubs unfairly escape similar punishment, they will be open to almost indefensible lawsuits from us and Forest plus anyone else caught in the cross-fire.

I just don't see the massive makeover some are predicting.

Somewhere, I have to believe in the Premier League Rules and Regulations (or whatever they call it), it must empirically state that if a club goes into Administration it is a 9 point deduction?

So, here's an idea.

Actually write down what the point penalty is for breach of FFP! Have a concrete formula in which the points deduction is automatically applied if a club is in breach.

Instead we have poo-flinging 10 points… "Oops, we stepped in it – make 'er 6 points; now another team – let's do 6 points for the appearance of continuity but then take 2 off for "good behavior".

What... the... fuck...?

It's an actual and legitimate circus! All the while, the circus is carrying an AR-15 and mowing down founding member clubs of its own league.

I don't know if an independent regulator is the way to go? But Burnham sure gets one thing right – the Premier League has absolutely no idea what it's doing, they're retroactively trying to make decisions to create the appearance of continuity and a "system", and they look like ass-clowns while fucking with the life of their own member clubs.

You can't make this shit up. Idiots.

And what's really scary is these idiots are idiots who think they're smart! God help us. God help football in England.

Has anyone contemplated that 2 points off the 6-point deduction for good behavior Forest received?

What kind of precedent does that set with an independent regulator? Call me nuts but I see Man City passing brown envelopes all over the place to receive 20 points off a 22-point deduction for "good behavior" [hyperbole, exaggeration to make the point].

The corruption element you're setting up with deductions for "good behavior" is off the freaking charts! And that's a real thing, folks. Private phone call to offer to fund some EPL "cause" or building project if the club in breach can receive a "good behavior discount"??

I've seen stranger things…

I think there were precedents quoted for the "good behaviour" reduction along the lines of a maximum of 1/3rd being common.

A reduction of 20 points off a 22-point deduction might raise a few eyebrows… unless it's the Shite of course.

I'm genuinely more interested in our takeover to be honest, but another thing that is hardly getting a mention, is that these commissions cost a lot of money, so I don't think it's something the league will want to continue doing, and it's also possible this is why City, with their bottomless pit of cash, have yet to be called upon?

The fact that Everton and then Forest (much more so) have cooperated with the Premier League process and accepted their punishment without calling a halt to it means the precedent is well and truly in place, and will surely apply to at least the accounts for the current season, whatever new system of rules (if any) may come in starting next season at the earliest.

As I think Brent pointed out elsewhere, the time it will take to get this Independent Football Regulator in place and given any powers whatsoever rules out anything changing from the Government side for 2 or 3 years at least.

And then the powers that they will have are extremely unlikely to include the kind of interference people seem to be crying out for. In fact, the irony of so many good honest working-class people putting their trust in an elitist Government body to bring a level playing field to the rampant market capitalism that is top-flight football in the Premier League seems utterly deluded to me.

I think you're right that there has to be a “model” that will determine how all clubs are treated equally by. However, it seems to me that the model should have been the first decision, our Commission's decision.That initial model appears to have been adjusted in the Forest Commission.

It will be extremely interesting to see what model is used in our second Commission. Will it be our model, the Forest model, or, more than likely and one I expect, a third model?

"It seems to me that the model should have been the first decision, our Commission's decision. That initial model appears to have been adjusted in the Forest Commission."

John, the model used by the Commission hearing our case was, I think, adjusted by our Appeal Board. The model used in the Forest case is, I believe, consistent with that.

Depends on your take of the overall picture, Charles.

He also took over various moribund chemical sites and forged them into a massive corporation that has given thousands of people a steady job.

I was told by the son of one of the Grangemouth tanker drivers that the deal Ratcliffe wanted to expunge was indeed ridiculously generous, gifted to them by weak management who ultimately hadn't run the site profitably. That deal was an anachronism that Ratcliffe needed to be rid of so that his company wasn't at risk of being financially crucified by a small group of workers.

There are plenty of golden handcuff deals in existence that your average worker should be very happy about if they eventually get binned. Pay inequality isn't necessarily restricted to vertical stratification in a business.

Man City's situation is a farce. I sort of get why it's taking so long but, if they don't make a start, they'll never get anywhere. The financial irregularities and accounting treatment will feed into the PSR calculations.

I still can't believe only Everton and Forest have been charged. Only two teams have breached, according to the Premier League?

What did the Commission report into Forest's case say about the level of penalties that could be applied?

They are looking to do multiple inflated deals with the Saudis in June before the cut-off at the end of June. Another crooked way of solving the problem, like Salah going there for £100M.