Everton appoint “super silk” to lead PSR appeal

Many thanks for posting this, presumably from Twitter. Not sure of the provenance, but it has the appearance of being genuine, and hopefully good news that Everton off the field appear to be upping their game — not before time.

Stop this self-licking ice cream that is the Premier League and make it accountable to independent regulators.

So much for the person who told me the case was being heard early this month, with a decision by the end of the month. Never believe anything a total stranger tells you! 😡😡😡

Firstly, no structured penalties were in place that had been voted for by the 20 Premier League clubs.

And secondly, they were out of their own allotted time to charge us.

A silk would have said earlier don't disclose unless the Premier League prove the sanction.

An Appeal now this late in the day seems arbitrary.

Playing Devil's Advocate, "Er, you gave us the evidence to prosecute. Why would we do you any favours when our remit is to investigate and prosecute?"

His appointment says to me that we have a very solid case to possibly get more than a reduced point deduction. An indication that there's enough meat on the legal bones to get the sporting sanction overturned and given a financial one?

Also, timing wise the hearing must be three or four weeks away, or more, if the eminent Mr Rabinowitz is only just being hired.

I don't know if this would apply to Everton in this case. Maybe Peter Quinn would have a view on this and how we are likely to fare in our fight to get all or some of our points back.

I'd just thought the same myself but, as this is not a court case, I doubt the Premier League will pay our costs if we win.

Yes, I imagine Everton wouldn't get their fees back in this case.

It's not down to the Premier League to decide if we get any points back, it's down to the appeal board, and if they decide in our favour, then the points are given back.

Anyway, with my obviously limited knowledge, I'd like to think we stand a good chance of at least reducing the punishment.

"Never believe anything a total stranger tells you! 😡😡😡"

Don't take sweets from them either, can result in a very sore arse!

Not talking from experience, by the way, my friends Tarquin, Sebastian, Jeremy and Quentin have all said as much! :-)

I think your stranger has got mixed up with the timeframe for looking at P&S for the latest accounting period.

Decision by Monday, from what I've read with clickbait sites churning our Forest and us as vulnerable. Jungle drums are saying we are just about clear of another transgression.

That was a right travesty of justice that one!

Six minutes later, Gerrard approached McGee, who was still at the bar. Gerrard's friend John Doran landed the first blow, jabbing his elbow into McGee's face. As McGee reeled backwards, Gerrard thought he was about to be attacked and reacted with punches.

Ian Smith, another member of Gerrard's party, joined in. Doran and Smith then kicked McGee.

Money can't buy you love but it can buy you a fucking jury.

“A silk would have said earlier don't disclose unless Premier League prove the sanction. An Appeal now this late in the day seems arbitrary.”

Struggling to make sense of that, John. “Prove the sanction”. You mean prove the allegation?

Don't disclose what?

Why is the appeal “late in the day”. It was, as far as know, made within the time limit.

What is arbitrary about an appeal?

The date hasn't been made public but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't happen this month.

The Mike Walker of KCs.

This guy is Tier 1 at least so Premier League level. Better than nothing, I guess.

Maybe Abrahamovich made him an offer he couldn't refuse?

I think there's loads of bent judges, briefs and especially bizzies. Well, being honest, there's loads of bent people everywhere!

If the Premier League survival of Everton FC, and the potential takeover of the club could have been (and possibly still is) heavily dependent on the result of the Independent Commission's findings, then why in the name of Hades didn't Moshiri get the legal 'A Team' in the first place?

Our current owner has not demonstrated one iota of critical thinking to make anyone else think that he is a successful businessman and a self-made billionaire!

The more you look at Moshiri's career, the more you come to think (or realise maybe..?) that he is just a useful 'tool' for a much more business savvy, and financially wealthy 'persona non grata'.

Is there anyone at the top capable of stepping back and asking where is all this taking the sport and the industry? I am unconvinced a regulatory body will improve matters. It might well make matters worse. The recent history of them in this country does not augur well.

Yet, in the absence of leadership and integrity within the game, it is hard to imagine an alternative.

The game has sown the seeds of its own destruction (to borrow a phrase from that Marx fella).

Good luck, Mr Rabinowitz.

You didn't say it well.

Did your dentures fall out?

I don't think anyone within the club, including Moshiri, saw a points deduction coming. To be fair, I don't think anyone saw a 10-point deduction coming. I certainly didn't.

Well let’s see how the appeal goes.

An Appeal is not late here but an Appeal can mean a challenge and not just to challenge a judge's order as normal for an Appeal, which is review insofar as the judge was wrong to make that court order.

Everton should not have handed over the books, ie Disclosure… normal procedure is disclosure must be proportionate, certainly for a commercial situation as here on our facts it was incredibly naive.

I suspect there was no way the club could have resisted 'disclosure' as you call it. They had to justify monies spent and the only way to do that was with documents – 40,000 of them – and arguments to go with.

The huge strategic mistake the club made was to ever admit they had breached PSR. They should have maintained the arguments that kept their calculation of the net loss below £105M and stuck to their guns.

But too late now. No new evidence means no new or rehashed arguments to justify outgoings that have not been allowed. They have to go for the lack of explanation justifying the 10-point deduction, and everything we've heard since surrounding that.

The terms of the appeal differ from a court of law and are defined in the Premier League's own closed-shop rules.

Moshiri deciding at the last minute to abandon his long-argued baseless defence in favour of coughing the job screwed us to the wide.

Once again, as he has throughout his appalling tenure as owner (and spare me hearing praise of him on account of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock please) spread our club's knicker-less ass right over a barrel to allow all and sundry to have their way, to our massive cost.

He makes the ludicrous Peter Ridsdale at Leeds years ago look like a maestro owner.

Add to that, the question: What is a Barrister, KC, or even Devil's Advocate? They are professional liars, and economists of the truth or facts! That is why most migrate to politics, and continue their very well remunerated, but somewhat easier existence.

Now here's the dichotomy: I hope he succeeds, but very much doubt he will, and the cost to the club, as Rob @ 10, implied, will that put us further into the brown stuff?

The appeals board, like referees and VARs, are extremely unlikely to admit to errors, and even less likely to apologise.

If it is true that Mr Rabinowitz is now leading our legal team, then it is an excellent appointment and, based on what I have read and heard about him, we now have the equivalent of Cristiano Ronaldo playing for us!

However, as Michael has correctly said, we are bound by the Premier League Rules in terms of the appeal and most importantly we have pleaded guilty to the charge. None of us have had sight of the appeal documents, we do not know the basis of the appeal.

Most of what has been written in the press etc is pure conjecture and I do fully understand the cynicism. This appointment is not going to be cheap. What I think it does indicate is that 777 Partners, who must be funding this, have no intention of allowing us to become the sacrificial lamb. They are to be applauded for this.

We still have no idea when the appeal is taking place, who the members of the appeal panel are and if, for example, the decision of the European Court in the “Super League” case is going to make a big difference. It appears we will know by Monday if there are going to be any other PSR charges facing our club.

In the meantime, 3 points on Sunday would be fantastic. See you down the Goodison Road.

This coming Monday will be very interesting as this is when the Premier league inform clubs if anybody has transgressed the P&S rules. I just hope that Everton have stayed within the limits otherwise the best barrister in the World wont be able to help us.

The sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted because the judiciary believed in computer evidence as well as corrupt Post Office and Fujitsu employers.

In our case, it wasn't a faulty computer to blame, it was our owner a supposed accountant and Chaiman and financial director.

Just listening to a reporter on the radio this morning who said an agent has told him that around 80% of Premier League clubs may have broken the P&S rules. So Monday may be a very interesting day indeed.

Should more clubs be found to have transgressed the rules, it does bring into question whether the rules are fit for purpose.
I have believed for a long time there shouldn't be an FFP in Europe or a P&S rule in the Premier League.

Allow clubs to spend what they want, but make it a rule that no owner can leave a club in a worse financial position than when they took over. How do you implement it? Simple: you make every owner sign a legally binding bond that they will be liable for any debt apart from what they inherited.

Let's be very clear: this was brought in by the cartel of clubs who didn't want anybody like Man City to come in and buy who they want and therefore challenge the cartel.

Competitive advantage within this Premier League is just such a gigantic nonsense. Chelsea have spent a billion pounds this season, but oh yes, no competitive advantage there… none whatsoever.

As these were the ones who were dealing with accounts and assuring the Premier League everything was above board, I think bringing this top guy in will give a good account and have a lot going in his favour with regards to how the first hearing had so many pitfuls, as none of those responsible are no longer at the club, so had no defence people to attend their actions.

This guy will use this as an unjust unfairness and will have all the clout to turn it in our favour.

We should have appointed this guy for the first hearing, but I reckon he will give us a very good chance of winning our appeal.

Better late than never.

The decision to build a new stadium.

The appointment of Colin Chong, a man with a proven track record in large scale construction projects, to run that particular show.

As far as the appeal is concerned, I will be surprised if we get even one point back, silk or no silk.

Dyche has got it right - we will have to decide our own destiny on the pitch.

To me, he knows he has to sell up entirely, the stadium still way off being fully funded, and has on account of his misconduct now made himself a mere herring sparring in a sea full of sharks........

To the club's and fans' ultimate cost of course.

The whole lot of them are charlatans, corrupt arseholes.

Look at the corrupt legal lot involved in the Post Office business.

Wouldn't trust one of them.

He will be taking a bath alright but according to Forbes his current net worth is US$3.1 Billion or £2.8 Billion. If I remember correctly he was worth £1.2 Billion when he bought us. So if that's true and he loses whatever he has put in, he is still going to be worth maybe £2 Billion – that will soften the blow.

Yes, we have done it tough over the last few years thanks to him and his former board and we may have more to come but I believe we will get through it somehow or other.

Just call us the Indomitables.

1. Moshiri naively assumed his own innocence and went in expecting a kind outcome.

2. The admittance of guilt was forced on the club. A little presumptive, but when asked how the club pleads with the removal of 'excuses', there was only ever one response, especially without proper legal representation.

3. Lack of funding. Until 777 Partners pitched in, the club wouldn't have had the funding to support top representation.

4. The Post Office scandal.

Ignoring the first point as it was sheer naivety, the newly appointed Rabinowitz now actually has context, evidence and precedence he can present a solid challenge back to the panel.

Should the appeal be successful, great. If the appeal is unsuccessful, the outcome will be even clearer than day that the Premier League don't care and are abusing their powers – which then heads straight into the current Post Office scandal where senior officials were corrupt. The Premier League will not want that exposure.

I believe we'll get a reduction of points lost, but not convinced we'll regain them all.

Picking up on the 80% of Premier League clubs falling foul of the PSRs, are the Premier League really going to continue to deduct 10 points from 19 clubs? Just not seeing it.

No idea what for so far, but could be interesting!

Hopefully Andy Burnham's had a word in somebody's shell like and told 'em to tell the Masters give us back our 10 points, oh and throw in another 3 for our inconvenience.

Probably to brief the DCMS on the outcome of Everton's appeal against the 10-point deduction which is due to be heard next Wednesday.

The following hourly rates are intended to provide some general guidance to fees for attendance at court in standard cases.

King’s Counsel: £350 to £500

Counsel of over 20 years: £200 to £350

Junior Counsel between 10 and 20 years in practice: £150 to £275

Junior Counsel between 5 and 10 years in practice: £125 to £200

Junior Counsel up to 5 years in practice: £75 to £150

So how many hours will this fellow be working? I wouldn't have thought it would take very long to come up with a decent argument then the hearing itself so maybe a few hours? So we are probably on the hook for a grand. Hopefully it is worth it.

And I am hoping that Andy Burnham has it nailed. The process was flawed so the penalty has to be null and void.

Admitting guilt is not saying we deserve an outrageous 10-point deduction. It is saying we went a bit over our spend but there were mitigating circumstances, we expect a small fine, like what happened to Leicester City.

At last, the club has made a move that will give us the best opportunity to overturn this decision by the "Independent" commission.

Andy Burnham has brought out in the open, the flaws in the decision. Hiring the is man is a top class move. It follows our motto and gives us the best chance of justice.

Only the best is good enough!

Brian (53) I forget which one of the directors said it but I'm sure the statement went something like this " We feel it is best for the club if we resign (likely with a decent payoff) We're so sorry to make this decision as we loved the club' but we feel it's in the club's best interest.

Something along those lines. It seemed rather odd to me that the ones responsible fopr the good running of the club, all buggered off before defending our club.

The working title is "Mr Moshiri vs The Premier League"

Here’s the Martin Samuel article from the Times…he has no concrete evidence that we will be charged on Monday.

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.

That they would change the rules to come to another way forward was and is always going to happen. The reality, as Martin Samuels says, is that Everton would be / could be, forced out of the league before it happens.

To justify what? Rules that were never fair? No, for the sake of the management, no one else, of the Premier League.

Everything should be wiped now, before it becomes apparent that several top clubs and half of the rest of the league are likely to default at some point.

Bite the bullet, Masters. You fucked up thinking you could play hardball with us. As soon as the verdict was in, the comparative punishment for Man City was so bad it could not (and will not) happen.

It should end now or the Premier League is finished.

We were daft enough to hold our hands up and assume we would be treated fairly. A classic case of "What would Everton do" bullshit, that was spouted by our late Chairman.

it has been shown from more than one source that the rules have been retro fitted and are still not in the official Premier League Handbook.

While some may scream at this, consider 2 points;

1. This man is one of the top 2 or 3 advocates in the world.

2. Hiring Lawrence Rabinowitz KC for a week, is cheaper than hiring André Gomes for a week!!