Financial Fairplay Investigation - 2025 Nobody in Breach

[eyesalwaysblue]

Like the Post office scandal this lot

[Ell capitan]

If Lord Pannick was priced at between 5-10k an hour then you wouldnt necessarily want our fellow billing us for weeks at around £0.1m per day unless the cost was estimated to be significantly less than what we would stand to lose. eg probably only in the case of likely relegation, given each place on the table is worth only £2.2m. This isnt that complex a case to argue.

That’s not how it works. You pay for the hours the dude actually works.

[Cozzie]

Interesting tweet this, he makes a good point. The £105M limit should have moved/been raised with inflation.

[Dchans]

Just one more reason to give us the points back

Hard to see how they fully enforce this now

[Cods]

That’s not how it works. You pay for the hours the dude actually works.

Um..., well yes Ell Capitan, obvious-ly (had to, sorry).
I thought that was implied, but maybe not?

My point was that it likely isn't cheap for his services, and that had we engaged him much earlier, the case, having carried on for some time (for which we might have sought or required further advice, regular check ins and actually paid for guaranteed priority service, either included in, or over and above any Retainer) will likely have resulted in considerably greater expense. And that the expense may extend well beyond any benefit we receive from his services. Partly speculation but you can see the reasoning.

The numbers I used were simply to illustrate this, but also to indicate what the billable hours could well have approached...ie a number that could easily be followed by 5, if not 6 zeros.

[Ell capitan]

Got it. I guess my point was that retaining him earlier would only be more expensive to the extent there was actually work to do. It’s not really clear that there was. From a purely mathematic perspective if there was any chance that earlier involvement could’ve helped reduce the potential points deduction then I think you’d be crazy to try and scrimp on the fees. Yes a PL place is only worth £2m BUT a deduction increases the risk of relegation, and that would be catastrophic. If we can pay half a mill a month for Andre Gomes, we can cough up for a few hours of Lord Pannick.

[Cods]

Got it. I guess my point was that retaining him earlier would only be more expensive to the extent there was actually work to do. It’s not really clear that there was. From a purely mathematic perspective if there was any chance that earlier involvement could’ve helped reduce the potential points deduction then I think you’d be crazy to try and scrimp on the fees. Yes a PL place is only worth £2m BUT a deduction increases the risk of relegation, and that would be catastrophic. If we can pay half a mill a month for Andre Gomes, we can cough up for a few hours of Lord Pannick.

No doubt, it's certainly about balancing the likelihoods. Completely agree that even a hint of relegation would be disastrous.

I'm not sure though that our point of argument requires a silk, it seems pretty straight forward with a multitude of points to argue, but we also might not know the full story.

I don't believe we could be as completely a shambles as we go on about here sometimes.

[Shogun]

Nobody talking about us being fucked over again?

[Cozzie]

Nobody talking about us being fucked over again?

Find out Monday I guess.

I just hope whatever happens it's enough to bring it to its knees.

[Shogun]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cond ... -vdrp0rsn8

Condemning Everton and Forest a bit rich when rules set to be scrapped

Changing profit and sustainability rules in August is a tacit admission that, in the present state, they are no longer fit for purpose

This is how convinced the Premier League is of the worth of its profit and sustainability rules. From August 2024, they change. Quite how isn’t yet in the public domain, but the expectation is for a system more aligned with the Uefa model, focusing on wages to turnover. So, on Monday, the likelihood is that Everton and Nottingham Forest will be charged and, if found guilty, potentially relegated, for falling foul of a system rated so highly by its enforcers that it has eight months to live. There’s governance for you. Watch out, the Post Office.

Changing profit and sustainability rules (PSR) is a tacit admission that, in the present state, they are no longer fit for purpose. This would figure as the system hasn’t really evolved since 2014 and does not take into account changes in the football landscape. Yet, while admitting that the rules need updating, the punishments have become draconian if Everton’s ten-point deduction is now the benchmark. This will come to its head when Manchester City eventually answer 115 charges for breaching rules in a system that has already been discarded. It could be that Everton may even pass PSR, as they will exist in August, having suffered relegation in May under the redundant system.

And rules are rules, as we often hear. Clubs break rules as they were, not as they will be at a future date. But punishment shouldn’t be punishment, not on such a ruinous scale, when so much is in flux. There should be proportionate tempering that takes this into account. Instead, the Premier League insists on donning the black cap. Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans were the last men sentenced to death in Britain, and were hanged on August 13, 1964. Capital punishment was later suspended and finally abolished in 1969. The Premier League, meanwhile, is intent on hurrying through capital sentences, in the weeks before capital punishment is done. And is the sentence fitting the crime? In the present five-year period — from summer 2019 to summer 2024 — Everton are 18th in the Premier League net spend table, with only Luton Town and Brighton & Hove Albion below them. It is hard, then, to view this club as the epitome of all that is wrong in football.

The argument that financial controls are what makes English football competitive also foundered in a week when this season’s success story, Aston Villa, and the bright sparks of last year, Newcastle United, both admitted, through the Villa head coach, Unai Emery, and the Newcastle chief executive, Darren Eales, that they would have to sell good players to comply with PSR rules. These are two great clubs finally in a position to compete after so long in the wilderness. And forcing them to shed talent to meet regulations that are being consigned to the bin before the end of that same transfer window is of benefit to the English game?

So Everton and Forest are lawyering up. Everton have engaged Laurence Rabinowitz KC to fight their case, Forest have enlisted Nick De Marco KC. They’ll be condemned for doing that, too, if City’s experience is anything to go by. Many feel it unfair that City’s lawyers have slowed the progress of the 115 charges to a crawl, yet it’s a strange world in which a club can’t use lawyers to fight a legal process.

Those who have watched Mr Bates vs The Post Office will know what can happen on entering court armed with little beyond a feeling of righteousness. The clubs may not win but, with the Premier League coming over all masterful, they would be mad not to meet a legal challenge head-on.

If this were a gold-standard system, if it took into account the way the game has evolved through ownership, transfer fees, compound interest, inflation and a hundred other tiny factors, the punishments would be more palatable.

As it is, a soon-to-be discarded system could be about to do immeasurable, potentially irreparable, harm. Profit and sustainability? As Premier League entities, Everton and Forest may yet be regulated to death.

[Shogun]

[Cozzie]

So it's highly likely Monday will bring another deduction?

Yet here we are, appealing the first conviction, what happens then?

I'm out if we get another deduction, especially since the landscape keeps changing.

[blueToffee]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cond ... -vdrp0rsn8

Condemning Everton and Forest a bit rich when rules set to be scrapped

Changing profit and sustainability rules in August is a tacit admission that, in the present state, they are no longer fit for purpose

This is how convinced the Premier League is of the worth of its profit and sustainability rules. From August 2024, they change. Quite how isn’t yet in the public domain, but the expectation is for a system more aligned with the Uefa model, focusing on wages to turnover. So, on Monday, the likelihood is that Everton and Nottingham Forest will be charged and, if found guilty, potentially relegated, for falling foul of a system rated so highly by its enforcers that it has eight months to live. There’s governance for you. Watch out, the Post Office.

Changing profit and sustainability rules (PSR) is a tacit admission that, in the present state, they are no longer fit for purpose. This would figure as the system hasn’t really evolved since 2014 and does not take into account changes in the football landscape. Yet, while admitting that the rules need updating, the punishments have become draconian if Everton’s ten-point deduction is now the benchmark. This will come to its head when Manchester City eventually answer 115 charges for breaching rules in a system that has already been discarded. It could be that Everton may even pass PSR, as they will exist in August, having suffered relegation in May under the redundant system.

And rules are rules, as we often hear. Clubs break rules as they were, not as they will be at a future date. But punishment shouldn’t be punishment, not on such a ruinous scale, when so much is in flux. There should be proportionate tempering that takes this into account. Instead, the Premier League insists on donning the black cap. Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans were the last men sentenced to death in Britain, and were hanged on August 13, 1964. Capital punishment was later suspended and finally abolished in 1969. The Premier League, meanwhile, is intent on hurrying through capital sentences, in the weeks before capital punishment is done. And is the sentence fitting the crime? In the present five-year period — from summer 2019 to summer 2024 — Everton are 18th in the Premier League net spend table, with only Luton Town and Brighton & Hove Albion below them. It is hard, then, to view this club as the epitome of all that is wrong in football.

The argument that financial controls are what makes English football competitive also foundered in a week when this season’s success story, Aston Villa, and the bright sparks of last year, Newcastle United, both admitted, through the Villa head coach, Unai Emery, and the Newcastle chief executive, Darren Eales, that they would have to sell good players to comply with PSR rules. These are two great clubs finally in a position to compete after so long in the wilderness. And forcing them to shed talent to meet regulations that are being consigned to the bin before the end of that same transfer window is of benefit to the English game?

So Everton and Forest are lawyering up. Everton have engaged Laurence Rabinowitz KC to fight their case, Forest have enlisted Nick De Marco KC. They’ll be condemned for doing that, too, if City’s experience is anything to go by. Many feel it unfair that City’s lawyers have slowed the progress of the 115 charges to a crawl, yet it’s a strange world in which a club can’t use lawyers to fight a legal process.

Those who have watched Mr Bates vs The Post Office will know what can happen on entering court armed with little beyond a feeling of righteousness. The clubs may not win but, with the Premier League coming over all masterful, they would be mad not to meet a legal challenge head-on.

If this were a gold-standard system, if it took into account the way the game has evolved through ownership, transfer fees, compound interest, inflation and a hundred other tiny factors, the punishments would be more palatable.

As it is, a soon-to-be discarded system could be about to do immeasurable, potentially irreparable, harm. Profit and sustainability? As Premier League entities, Everton and Forest may yet be regulated to death.

So we are likely to be charged?

Makes me a bit sick to my stomach. There would be no bouncing back from that you’d suspect, they just seem intent on burying us to prove they can.

Puts a massive cloud over everything. I can’t believe that they’re docking us 20 points in one season for what is basically the same offence that’s before you get into the ludicrous amount of points docked compared to going into administration. I mean they’re basically condemning us to that too so just tack on another 9 pts.

Just grim. Can’t punish the fans? What a joke. Never mind that “sustainability” rules would themselves break the club.

[blueToffee]

Corrupt.

[AjaxAndy]

Punish us twice in a season but quickly then change the rules before the City hearing so the can let them off and not have to spend millions and millions in legal battles they'll lose?

Sounds about right.