Everton have confirmed that they have lodged a formal appeal with the Chair of the Premier League’s Judicial Panel against last month’s ruling by a Commission to impose a 10-point deduction on the club.
The club were hit with the biggest points penalty in the history of top-flight football on the recommendation of a Premier League-appointed panel based for breaching Profitability and Sustainability Rules by £19.5m.
Shock on the blue half of Merseyside at the disproportionately heavy sanction has been matched in many quarters of the game and there is hope that the penalty could be reduced.
According to i News, one sports lawyer says that the club stand a good chance of having the number of points levied against them but having the entire penalty erased is unlikely.
Carlos Hurtado, a sports lawyer at Baker McKenzie, said in regard to how Everton could argue their case to the Appeal Board:
“First I would focus my response on the fact Everton have basically co-operated and been transparent. Broadly speaking it doesn’t appear in this case they have withheld information,” he says.
“There is a lot around mitigation too – the war in Ukraine, losing USM sponsorship, things like that. But another area of mitigation is to stress there was no intention to gain a competitive or sporting advantage.
“I think there is weight in the argument that they tried to comply with the regulations. I would stress that after the date being argued about the club are in compliance and have corrected the mistake.
“A lot of the external factors have gone now and we could show a different perspective to the appeal board and get a different decision. I would focus something around proportionality. There was a breach but it was a smaller breach, not a substantial breach for the points deduction put out.
“I would also look at precedent – the previous punishments in the EFL and in Italy, for example, have not been as harsh as Everton’s.”
In the meantime, the chair of Everton’s Fan Advisory Board (FAB) has written to Alison Brittain CBE, the Chair of the Premier League, to express his body’s concern that the Premier League commission’s adjudication did not take into account the impact on the club’s supporters.
“[W]e would like to express our significant concerns that at no point during the process which led to (what is, in our opinion) the disproportionate penalty imposed on Everton Football Club or, in considering and making recommendations about the potential sanctions that should be applied to the breach, has the Premier League considered or taken into account the views of supporters,” Dave Kelly wrote.
“Developing a meaningful understanding of perspectives and engaging with key stakeholders are well accepted principles of effective regulation. One of the guiding principles of the Fan Led Review is to ensure that regulatory sanctions should avoid impacting fans, wherever possible.
Can you therefore clarify what measures the Premier League took to effectively consider the impact or interests of supporters in recommending an unprecedented sporting sanction? Can you also confirmwhich, if any, groups were consulted and how their feedback was factored into the Premier League considerations?”