The NSNO Everton Forums

MayorFarnham wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:40 pm With our away record invasion should be the last thing on our minds.

Ah yes, but at the time I think away matches were the only place we were actually accumulating points, as we certainly weren't at home.

Cods wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:38 pm Perhaps, but when we know that at the very least, one other club (but likely more) had also been doing it for years in broad daylight, completely without issue or sanction, it makes a mockery of the fit and proper test and any either rules and regs doesn't it? It's arguably condoning these practices which the league watch and allow to continue. So why shouldn't any club look at that and ask, "well if they're doing it why can't we?" That would actually be a true level playing field. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept, and condone.

As someone said somewhat similarly regarding Reading today, if the league can clear an owner and deem them fit and proper, then they must be able to remove that clearance if/when they believe that they're not.

Our 'owner' didn't even need to do the fit and proper test, Moshiri did that bit. You're right though, other clubs will have questionable deals as well, I just don't think it's something we can complain about, we weren't even subtle about it.

Gash wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:47 pm Our 'owner' didn't even need to do the fit and proper test, Moshiri did that bit. You're right though, other clubs will have questionable deals as well, I just don't think it's something we can complain about, we weren't even subtle about it.

Provided those that did similarly are impacted similarly then I agree.

Usmanov sat on Arsenal's board. Didn't seem to be a problem then.

For me, it's not really about being pious either though, there are written rules (haha, not including the @EPL, you 'policy on the run sheisters') and unwritten ones upon which you play the game.

Space on the go there.

Someone’s just been called a cretin.

Cods wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:03 pm Provided those that did similarly are impacted similarly then I agree.

Usmanov sat on Arsenal's board. Didn't seem to be a problem then.

For me, it's not really about being pious either though, there are written rules (haha, not including the @EPL, you 'policy on the run sheisters') and unwritten ones upon which you play the game.

Who's done similar? Genuinely asking because I can't remember too many clubs that have a set up like ours over the last few years where a Russian oligarch owned a football club in all but name and had his accountant as the front man. Usmanov position at Arsenal was completely different to his position here so there's not really a comparison, I don't even think he was on the board, just a shareholder.

As I said, we can't really be taking the moral high ground or some kind of victim mentality over some of our funding and sponsorship deals and how we lost them and the old "well the other boys did it too sir" isn't a reasonable excuse. I am fucked off at the 10 point deduction and I'll be fucked off at any further punishment but I'm not going to sit and try and defend or justify the majority of the goings on at the club over the last few years.

£9m breach, apparently

Granite wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:36 pm £9m breach, apparently

Will be interesting to see how much Forest are over. I'd imagine £9m = 5 points deduction?

If so we'll have been given a 15 point deduction for being a total of £24.5m overspend.

If say Forest were £75m over or something ridiculous, would they get a 45 point deduction?

Just goes to show how they've not thought things through at all given how big a points deduction they'd have to give if someone was actually well over.

We might stay up based purely on how much Forest have spent more than us above the threshold, or likewise be relegated by it.

Sky on one hand gleefully reporting the new charge, and in the other running a ticker claiming we're interested in Kalvin Philips with Citeh asking for the majority of his wages to be covered.

AjaxAndy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:47 pm Will be interesting to see how much Forest are over. I'd imagine £9m = 5 points deduction?

If so we'll have been given a 15 point deduction for being a total of £24.5m overspend.

If say Forest were £75m over or something ridiculous, would they get a 45 point deduction?

Just goes to show how they've not thought things through at all given how big a points deduction they'd have to give if someone was actually well over.

We might stay up based purely on how much Forest have spent more than us above the threshold, or likewise be relegated by it.

I read somewhere today that as Forest only became members of PL last season there is a different calculation / total loss allowed as the were in Championship for part of the accounting period - cant find it now though.

Looking on the Forest forum they seem to think they've gone £35m over.

So that's what? £15.5m more than we did and got a 10 point deduction?

So what's that work out as? A 17 point deduction (I can't do the maths, if anyone else can I'd be most grateful)?

AjaxAndy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:55 pm Looking on the Forest forum they seem to think they've gone £35m over.

So that's what? £15.5m more than we did and got a 10 point deduction?

So what's that work out as? A 17 point deduction (I can't do the maths, if anyone else can I'd be most grateful)?

Not sure it works like that.

From what I remember it's 1 point for every 5M you go over to a MAX of 12.

This was the figure the Premier league originally wanted.

Cozzie wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 11:01 pm Not sure it works like that.

From what I remember it's 1 point for every 5M you go over to a MAX of 12.

This was the figure the Premier league originally wanted.

I remember the 12 but thought that'd been debunked? Hard to know really because they seem to just make it up as they go along.

Forest know they are screwed. Their excuse for breaching FFP was the fact that they chose not to sell Johnson in the financial year that they needed to because it would have been detrimental to the clubs performance on the pitch. Thats a similar excuse to the one we had for Richarlison which didn’t wash.

Again, we have all said it, but the PL really didn’t think it through with the whole 10 point thing. It has to be reduced otherwise they are sending Forest down without any sort of fight.

From The Times:

Silence over Manchester City proves this is tone-deaf posturing

Everton and Nottingham Forest deserve punishment for breaching financial rules but would the champions be treated this toughly? Of course the answer is no

January 15 2024, The Times

It was surprising to see the chief executive of the Premier League, Richard Masters, at a match at the weekend because he certainly does not appear in tune with the game. His organisation’s tone-deaf statement about financial breaches by Everton and Nottingham Forest read like it had been written by lawyers for lawyers rather than understanding that these serious allegations have very human consequences.
A complicated story can basically be split into three narratives: the Premier League’s heartless treatment of fans of those clubs affected; the legitimacy of some of the Premier League’s case; and the mitigating reasons for some of the excesses of Everton and Forest.
Even if you agree with the importance of profit and sustainability rules (PSR) — as I do as long as it is applied consistently among all clubs, whatever their size, however powerful their lawyers — you have to show some understanding of what the charges mean on a human level, to supporters and staff of the two clubs.

Masters and his organisation have forgotten that football’s more than a business. It’s an obsession, underpinning the phenomenal success of the competition, and fans worry deeply about their club. One strand of Everton’s defence will be the adverse effect on the mental health of their followers.

It may appear mere pedantry to dispute the tone of the wording, which was sparse and arrogant, but the cold legalese actually confirms why the Premier League has lost the argument over the importance of PSR, and why so many fans are so contemptuous of an organisation that treats them contemptuously. The Premier League certainly is not “corrupt”, as Gwladys Street claims, but it is clueless and heartless at times.
And naive. Because Masters actually has a legitimate point to make, he just lacks the people skills or leadership qualities to make it convincingly, as his predecessor, Richard Scudamore, would have done. Because Everton and Forest have cases to answer. Other clubs who abided by the rules quietly point out they faced opponents who fielded players they could not afford under the rules. Forest have bought or loaned 130 players in the seven years since Evangelos Marinakis bought the club.

Balancing the books matters. Financial Fair Play was designed to prevent a club sliding into administration by over-spending. It’s there to encourage an organic approach, keeping outlay in proportionate line with revenue. As Mr Micawber, that Dickensian devotee of FFP, advised David Copperfield: “Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19, 19 shillings and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 and sixpence, result misery”.

The hypocrisy of the Premier League lies within its room. It allowed Farhad Moshiri at Everton and Marinakis to join the party, and didn’t question their spending more rigorously and consistently. More players, more stars in sport’s greatest soap opera, more plot lines, more interest from home and abroad and, bingo, more broadcast revenue.

That is why the new regulator will be so important in tracking their spending, almost applying PSR in real time. The Premier League insists it is coincidence that the statement arrived on the eve of Masters giving evidence to the DCMS Select Committee into football governance. Yet the Premier League’s failure to come up — so far — with a proper “new deal” for EFL clubs is another stain on the organisation that has just scooped a £6.7 billion rights bonanza.

And so to the clubs’ mitigating reasons. First, consistency. The Premier League’s defence is that the 115 charges against Manchester City for alleged financial breaches are so complicated they cannot be dealt with in the time frame afforded to Everton and Forest. Those clubs co-operated with the Premier League, while City have challenged and challenged, robustly protesting their innocence. Yet even if City are absolved of all blame, as Pep Guardiola and the club insist, the delay alone is damaging. It is impossible to celebrate fully City’s remarkable achievements until they are cleared. An asterisk lurks. The charges against City are historical, unlike Everton’s and Forest’s, but still affect the league.

Second, neither Everton nor Forest put the very existence of the Premier League in danger as Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur did with their brief Super League plotting, for which they were eventually fined. Everton believe they have already been punished for 75 per cent of the period covered by the new referral. Double jeopardy, they call it. The Super Leaguers put the whole English pyramid in jeopardy.

Third, timing. Everton believe they could have got £20 million more for Richarlison from Spurs had they not been placed under pressure to generate funds quickly. Forest believe they would have met PSR had they sold Brennan Johnson earlier last summer, but held on to maximise an offer from Tottenham Hotspur on deadline day. If so, the Premier League needs to make rules go from deadline day to deadline day over the three years.
Fourth, Bramley-Moore Dock. Even though PSR permits expenditure on infrastructure such as stadiums, Everton anger is rooted partly in their belief that they are effectively being punished for building a magnificent new stadium that will bring jobs to the community and more glamour to the Premier League. They wanted change in interest rates to be taken into account.

Both clubs deserve some punishment, PSR needs respecting, but Everton’s original ten points was excessive, and is being appealed against, with further sanction now threatened. The feeling that remains in all this is whether a bigger club, one of the Super League plotters, would be treated this toughly. And the answer is no. Masters has questions to answer to supporters, let alone to DCMS.

AjaxAndy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:47 pm Will be interesting to see how much Forest are over. I'd imagine £9m = 5 points deduction?

If so we'll have been given a 15 point deduction for being a total of £24.5m overspend.

If say Forest were £75m over or something ridiculous, would they get a 45 point deduction?

Just goes to show how they've not thought things through at all given how big a points deduction they'd have to give if someone was actually well over.

We might stay up based purely on how much Forest have spent more than us above the threshold, or likewise be relegated by it.

Forest have had low than 105m too. So it should be a percentage of their limit