Everton points deduction resolved - the second is yet to be
After months of agonising waiting, Everton Football Club's 10 point penalty for breaching profit and sustainability rules has been reduced to just six on appeal. The punishment has been the biggest in Premier League history. The amended sanction lifts the Toffees' five points clear of relegation.
Transcript
00:00 Everton Football Club's 10-point penalty for breaching profit and
00:05 sustainability rules has been reduced to just six. The amended
00:09 sanction lifts the Blues five points clear of relegation. The Toffees
00:13 received the deduction three months ago when the club was found guilty
00:17 of breaching the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules by
00:21 a three-person independent commission. The charges were implemented
00:25 on Everton after they recorded losses in excess of £105 million
00:29 over a three-year period ending in 2022. In its defence, Everton
00:34 cited the impact of the coronavirus pandemic preventing it from
00:38 implementing its player trading strategy in 2020 and the Russian
00:43 invasion of Ukraine that had a knock-on effect in terms of sponsorship
00:47 opportunities for the club. The club have come out and said they're
00:51 satisfied. I think the club know that some mistakes have been made.
00:56 But largely it comes down to two aspects that were upheld in the
01:03 appeal. One was the building of the stadium, the debt that they've
01:08 incurred on that. They are funding it themselves. So the debt incurred
01:14 on that was one. And the other one was there was no real guidelines
01:18 for breaking profit and sustainability rules laid out by the Premier
01:22 League. In January, the Toffees were hit by a second charge by the
01:26 Premier League for an alleged breach of profit and sustainability
01:30 rules. This follows scrutiny of the period up to last summer. Looking
01:34 at that second charge that's overhanging them that's going to go
01:39 to an independent commission, maybe look at it two ways. Because the
01:46 overlap, is there going to be a double jeopardy? Will Everton be
01:50 punished twice? Or does that mean that if, because it's over three
01:56 years, does it mean that two-thirds of Everton basically what they've
02:00 been punished with will be hit with it this time over? You get what I
02:05 mean? So four points effectively? Or is the stadium argument pretty
02:10 much there to say, look, we're building the stadium, it's
02:14 regenerating a massive part of Liverpool. Metro Mayor Steve
02:18 Rotherham alongside the Evertonian Greta Manchester Mayor Andy
02:22 Burnham met with members of the Everton fan advisory board to
02:26 express their concern at the deduction. Five points now above
02:31 the relegation zone which is massive, takes them up to 15th in the
02:35 table. Five points clear of the drop zone. It's good psychologically
02:39 as well for the players because I think Sean Dyche said that it is
02:43 starting to get to the players a little bit, not knowing. Richard
02:46 Masters, Premier League chief executive, refused to hand over
02:49 minutes of a Premier League board meeting in which the points
02:52 deduction was decided. This caused further anger, including from
02:57 the Metro Mayor who questioned how fans could truly support
03:00 decisions made going forward.