Everton among clubs pushing for Rebel Six points deduction

Doubt it very much. I imagine, with all the debt Real and Barca are in, if they can't now play in the Champions League, there would be murder; these teams have too much power. Plus l think Uefa will count the cost of not having those teams in the Champions League and think it will damage viewing figures.

The Premier League, perhaps a points deduction starting next season could be a compromise... once again, l doubt it. They plotted for over a year for this Super League and will just walk away... and that's it.

There's no need for a formal points deduction – just stop them being gifted bizarre VAR decisions. Same outcome.

However, the path towards equality for all clubs is now being further closed off with 'Honest' Lee Mason now appointed permanent VAR supremo from the start of next season.

I know the optics of it were awful, but I fail to see anything the "Big Six" actually did wrong in pursuing the Super League. A football club is a business and a brand and if you can maximise the value of the brand and the income it earns by leveraging premium competition, then surely you are only following standard business practice that applies.

The markets that presumably they'll be denied in Europe will easily be made up in newly monetized Asian, American and even African markets and, give it a year (Covid notwithstanding), they'll be playing to full houses at premium prices once again after a season as their natural fanbase, or those who can afford it, wander back.

That's a business model, it seems viable and the nature of business is to make maximum profit. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, beyond the fact that it is offensive to certain moral sensibilities. And it is going to happen... as sure as eggs.

John #2, I realize there's a widespread perception that the big teams get the VAR goodies, but perception isn't always reality.

ESPN has kept a running tally on VAR's impact regarding goals awarded and overturned. You will be surprised:

Burnley +4
Everton +4
Chelsea +3
Fulham +3
Sheffield United +3
Aston Villa +2
Brighton & Hove Albion +1
Crystal Palace +1
Leeds +1
Leicester City +1
Manchester City +1
Newcastle 0
Southampton 0
Manchester United -1
West Ham -1
Tottenham Hotspur -2
Wolves -2
Arsenal -6
Liverpool -6
West Brom -6

Source: How VAR decisions have affected every Premier League club in 2020-21

No discernible pattern of Big 6 favoritism. It didn't happen last season either:

Brighton & Hove Albion +8
Manchester United +7
Crystal Palace +4
Burnley +3
Newcastle +3
Southampton +3
Liverpool +2
Leicester City +1
Tottenham Hotspur +1
Manchester City 0
Arsenal -1
Everton -1
AFC Bournemouth -2
Chelsea -2
Watford -2
Aston Villa -3
West Ham -4
Sheffield United -5
Wolves -5
Norwich City -7

Source: How VAR decisions affected every Premier League club in 2019-20

Mike G,

Interesting stats, but just as important are the incidents where VAR hasn't intervened. The interventions in the match against the RS were an aberration that I'm sure Mr Mason will correct in future fixtures!

Mike @ 4,

Those stats don't tell the whole story though, what about when VAR wasn't used when it ought to have been?

Perhaps VAR wasn't as kind to our neighbours as many thought, but nothing will persuade me that almost every game on their way to the title had at least one questionable decision go their way.

Some teams may have benefitted from a VAR decision in a particular game, but the bare stats don't inform us what impact that decision may have had on the outcome of a match.

Barry, that's a good point. They should set up stats for the critical and decisive impact VAR decisions that swung games and in some cases kept teams up, and may lost teams a Cup tie etc.

Villa last season, v Sheffield United, was one of the worst and also the FA Cup is not a level playing field as most clubs beneath the Championship don't have the capacity to have VAR installed.

Praying for a victory tomorrow to take some rays of hope into next season.

Hope eternal.

Mike, no evidence there within that pure numerical occurence list. I wonder how it would look when expanded with situational/outcome effect, ie, scoreline as a result of decision. Context, as you say.

If there were anything at play, this might reflect similar "pressures" as allegedly felt by on-field referees. We can speculate for ever, of course. I was surprised to say the least at the outcome in the Goodison derby.

Mike G,

Why ruin one game on the pitch when you can now destroy 10 off it?

If, as managers like Nuno Espirito Sancto say, Mason wasn't fit to be a referee (and gets a hefty fine for saying so), what on earth qualifies Mason to oversee the VAR system?

John #10, he doesn't have to run, he doesn't have to make actual decisions to real people, and he can eat during the game instead of just before and after. And he's not Jon Moss. All sufficient qualifications IMO.

Besides, his departure leaves more games for good refs like your son, Chris. (He is, isn't he?)

Should be 10 points and no tournament play (National and European) for 1-year. However, remaining as always, all 20 clubs have a shot at the league title.

The Manc clubs and Chelsea can ride out the 1-year tournament ban. They got the money to keep the players happy for a season.

The RS will be interesting. With his excellent starting 11 mid-fielders and forwards accumulating a ton of miles on their legs these last 4-5 years, Henry needs "like" re-enforcements now. Easy to say. Hard to do (As we've discovered these last 4 years).

Yes, the 1-year tournament ban allows these 4 clubs to focus 100% on winning the League. Starting the season at –10 points evens out some of that. Plus, a caveat.

Given their ownership's unwillingness to spend money, Spurs and Arsenal starting the season at –10 points are fucked. Bottom-half of the Table, here they come.

To the caveat. If any of the 6 finish in the Top 4, including winning the title? The following season, no Europe. Tough titty. European positions go to whatever club(s) next in the Table. It's your owners' fault.

Speaking of the clubs' owners bringing it down on themselves. I know, appreciate, and was happy to see, the firestorm of protest kicked off by these 6 dumb clubs' owners actually going along with a scheme so contrary to the spirit of European football.

Those clubs' supporters, though. Blind-sided like the rest of us (their players and manager, too); I think there is only so much they should suffer.

1. As always, Premier League title up for whoever can win it.
2. The six "rebels" start at –10 points
3. 1-year ban on all tournament play
4. Champions League and Europa League positions in 2022-23 go to clubs, by league position, other than the six penalized club.

James, I like that..really do. Maybe a two year ban on Europe. That would hurt, yet be appropriate I think. Just fining them is a waste of time and to them just a minor inconvenience.

Christine - I think it reasonable, considering the "6" supporters shocked as the rest of us.

Didn't mention it above, I also think these minimal penalties for what the "6" did will generate positive response across English football fandom.

For fun:

ManCity and Chelsea work their way into the Top 4. ManU 6th, the RS 7th.

None can go to Europe re: the ban. A variety of EPL clubs [Dare I say it. US!] can..

European spots wide open. Club supporters north, south, east, west excited.

Most importantly, a certain law laid down by leadership of the most popular, followed, league in the world.

A big rock tossed into the European pro-game pond.

Christine and James; pass round what you're smoking will you, it sounds like good stuff.
€15mill fine - between the 12.
€100Mill each...next time you do it or anything similar; aka, 'k all.

Euro Super League punishment – the reality is very little will happen.

Premier League have little sanctions to go for as the clubs wanted to stay in their domestic leagues. They enjoy the Premier League money.

Unless contractually clubs or Premier League TV rights have something specific about this, ie, clubs qualifying for European competition must do x and y. Domestically they did very little other than cause outrage.

Uefa on the other hand could see this as a direct threat to their own competition and probably put sanctions in place.

I think this is the right path to go down. 1 or 2 year bans from European competitions. Hit them where it hurts most. The money and prestige of playing in Europe.

But Uefa I think are rightly pursuing those clubs that have not given up or backed down from their own closed shop competition. Again, I would ban them for 2 or 3 years from European competition.

From a business perspective there's nothing wrong with the idea of it. But thankfully the majority take the opinion of being fully in or fully out of the current competitions.

The important word, competition. A fair, open, domestic competition where the 'winners' are rewarded with qualifying for a European competition.

Stronger rules and punishment need to be inserted into a legally binding contract for each owner, club, league, Uefa and Fifa.

But even getting agreement on this could be problematic and sadly, legality seems to flex in favour of the rich.

I must be one of the few Blues supporters who couldn't care less about what is to be done about the renegade 6.
I am much more concerned about what can be done to lift Everton from this on-going midtable torpor, given our comparative lack of resources and indeed plans and ideas.
Phil McNulty of the BBC, reviewing the season, gave Everton 4 out of 10.
He also aimed a scarcely disguised at the club when stating the Everton are never slow or shy of telling the world how good they are off the field, rather than how they start to match that on the pitch.
It may prove McNulty a red, as some say, but I can't help feeling he has a point much as I love E.I.T.C.

Bernard @ 17

Aren't the two things intertwined? Everton is suffering from having little or no investment in the first couple of decades of the Premier League and therefore falling behind their rivals both on the pitch and off it.

Whilst Everton struggled for a foothold, The 'Dirty Dozen' was over a long period of time, able to force Uefa to adopt rules that suited the dozen to such an extent that it has already resulted in the English six making the Premier League something akin to a closed shop at least in terms of Champions League qualification.

Apart from Leicester City, Everton is the only side outside of the 'big six' to make the top four in almost twenty years, and even then the rules were changed to satisfy our friends from over the park. I think I'm right in saying that even Leicester City have only qualified once for the Champions League in the last few seasons virtue of them winning the league in a 'freak' season.

Punishments won't be meted out too heavily, and Barca, Juve, and Madrid are adamant that they have the law on their side, and if they're correct, the European Super League will happen, sooner rather than later.

I'm afraid that the genie has been out of the bottle for a very long time and there's very little chance that it will be put back – even if there are punishments meted out to the 'six' by the authorities. As for Everton, I think our ship has sailed, unless something unexpected and miraculous occurs in the next twelve months in terms of massive investment or a complete rethink by Uefa, Fifa, etc.

Barry, what killed the club for a generation was the chronic lack of investment that the now top clubs embraced. They changed their model and sought investment, better management and changed with the opportunity. Everton actually went backwards. The monetary gulf between us and the top clubs is now staggering. To expect us to compete at the same level as those with billions spent is farcical. They have the very, very best players and the very best options to improve their squads. We don't and unless Moshiris best mate decides to take an active investment, we are unlikely to eat at the top table very often or consistently. Despite the monies invested by Moshiri, we have had 20 years or more of basically nothing, living of the bones of our backside.. despite someone searching 24/7 for a buyer (not)
Moshiri is making a fist of it with his investment, but its been badly managed so far, Ancelotti hasn't got a good enough squad to find consistancy. I suspect he is mightly disappointed the way the season finished and it will herald the demise of a group of players but as has been said so many times in these pages, its he hope that kills you, but just for a few months this past season, we were on top playing good football, but season part 2 saw injuries, suspensions and loss of form and the gaps appeared..

What killed this club was the fact that Kenwright was happy to keep hold of his train set and play on the People's Club as some sort of throwback alternative to the big corporate machines that were now hoovering up all of the trophies between them.

I think you're bang on with that assessment Christine.

Excuse me up front as I generally tend to stick to the football and am nowhere near as well researched or read on the politics or governance of the club, so this is just an instinctive "off the cuff" view.

The rot seemed to set in pretty much from the time we last won the league. The investment in the squad that Howard Kendall had majestically managed to his second league title? Ian Wilson from Leicester City. That was it. Talk about resting on your laurels rather than seizing an opportunity to capitalise. Made worse as I assume we were very much involved in the early negotiations about the setting up of the Premier League. So we surely knew what was coming? We lacked forward thinking and dare I say, at board level, just assumed entitlement that we'd always be dining at the top table by virtue of being Everton.

It has been decades of neglect and underinvestment that sees us where we are. It will take years to dig us out of it and get us back to where we need to be. The only miraculous thing is that somehow, we have kept ourselves in a position by which it won't take decades to correct it if we invest and build wisely. Despite the hurt of last weekend and this season, on the pitch, we're not that far off and with the stadium plans, there are positives. Off the pitch, Moshiri needs to start owning his project rather than listening to sentimentalists. Hopefully that will see Usmanov come into the fold even more too. I get the impression he is doing so.

Enough of this from me!!

You make some good points Barry#18 and of course Christine #19. The truths that you both speak about our lack of investment over such a long period reduces us compete for the foreseeable future only with the impressively organized Leicester and the best of the rest.
Remember when Moshiri poached Koeman from Southhampton and pronounced that we now had four world class managers working in the NorthWest? In other words, that's the stage we occupy along with the other three. We knew it as nonsense really but Moshiri was in love with the idea of ownership and thought we could get to the top table with his money. Are we any nearer?
I know rumour mills should be ignored but only today, the Guardian suggests that Utd are "tracking" Torres of Vilarreal, Rice of West Ham, Jason Sando from Borussia Dortmund and some bloke called Harry Kane, currently languishing at Tottenham.
"We're not good enough" think Utd, so we will throw loads of money at your best players so that we can become as good as we think we deserve to be.
That's not our market, so our money might buy us maybe one or two decent players so that we can aim for sixth, or somewhere.

Justin@16, you say they did very little wrong in the domestic league apart from outrage.

They broke the Premier league rule of having to put in writing, before a team can look to enter another competition, they failed to put anything in writing, and although they did not join the league in the end, they all signed the papers to join a new league.

Now had they put it in writing first to the Premier league, then like you, would not have a problem, however by signing the papers, to join the new league, they have clearly broke the rules, those papers for the new league should not have have been signed, before they got approval from the Premier league, in writing.