How very ironic — you might even say, “Everton, that!” — that, having gone into the international break feeling as optimistic and as at ease as any time since Carlo Ancelotti was still kicking around Finch Farm, Evertonians were handed the shock of an unprecedented points penalty that plunged the club back into the kind of battle to avoid relegation that the Toffees’ recent form suggested might have been consigned to history for the time being.
It’s a little over a year since Everton were as high as 14th in the Premier League. West Ham, in 9th, were just three points away; victory over next weekend’s opponents, Manchester United, would have brought them to within four points of the Red Devils. Now, having been docked 10 points, they’re in the bottom three once again.
The Football Club and its supporters, not to mention many pundits and fans of other clubs, were left stunned by the recommendation from the independent commission to which Everton were referred by the Premier League back in March that the Blues be handed the most punitive penalty in top-flight history… all for exceeding the arbitrary Profitability and Sustainability threshold hold by a mere £19.5m.
When you consider that the penalty for going into Administration, a far more egregious threat to any club’s “sustainability”, is 9 points, that the consequences of a 10-point deduction could well destroy Everton in the event it leads to relegation, and that rival clubs are reportedly lining up to sue, thereby, potentially, putting the club into administration anyway, the whole situation is bordering on farce.
There is plenty that could, should and will be written about the Premier League’s actions, how they have very clearly used Everton as a convenient scapegoat — big enough a club to matter; not big enough to impact the “big six” cabal they claim are the big draws for their international audience — and how glaringly at odds this persecution of the Blues is with mild slap on the wrist that same cabal got three years ago, despite putting the very health of the English football pyramid in mortal danger when they tried to join a European Super League.
But amid the myriad concerns about the process that led to this decision, two lend this Independent Commission more than an air of “show trial”.
First, the leaking of the Premier League’s demand that the maximum penalty be imposed should Everton be found guilty before the panel had even heard all the arguments or deliberated, was blatantly prejudicial and, in any normal legal setting, would surely be grounds for a mistrial.
Second, just how “independent”, impartial and qualified were at least two members of this Commission?
Perhaps it was felt that Nick Igoe, the Finance Director at West Ham during the Carlos Tevez affair in 2005-06, was uniquely able to weigh in on Everton’s case given that the Hammers, under his watch, were found guilty of gaining a sporting advantage when the Argentine striker, illegally registered by the London club, scored a goal that helped relegate Sheffield United.
Except that in that case, when the Yorkshire club won the case, the Premier League ducked the option of handing out a points penalty and settled for a compensation payment instead. In the Commission’s own words, Everton did not deliberately break the rules in order to gain a sporting advantage, yet were hit with a massive 10-point deduction.
More baffling still is the fact that the panel appears to have been led by David Phillips KC, who is not only a member of the FA judicial panel but also the FA Premier League Panel. On that basis, one might wonder how he could be regarded as independent at all in this matter.
Furthermore, he represented Leeds United, “at every stage of the matter”, in their battle against a 15-point penalty, also in 2005-06, for failing to exit administration in a proper manner. And in May this year, in a separate ruling ahead of the Independent Commission into Everton’s alleged wrongdoing, Mr Phillips decided that, were the club found guilty, the Commission could award Burnley, Leicester City, Southampton, Nottingham Forest and his former client, Leeds United, compensation. Or that, at the very least, those clubs could be entitled to seek such damages.
The emerging consensus is that only one or two of those clubs may end up having any legitimate claim to compensation — Forest have reportedly dropped their claims; Southampton surely don’t have a leg to stand on — and even then it might be incredibly difficult to prove the level of sporting advantage, if any, Everton gained from their breach of spending rules. And if nothing comes of that pursuit of damages, Everton would still back themselves to beat the drop this season despite the hefty penalty imposed on them.
In the meantime, Everton have announced their intention to appeal the decision; observers are split on whether they have any chance of having the penalty reduced or overturned completely.
Yet it’s hard to shrug off the feeling that there was nowhere near enough distance between the prosecution — the Premier League — and the adjudicating entity — the Independent Commission — for this to have been a truly fair process. The deep-seated suspicion that this was a politically-motivated decision on the part of the Premier League aimed at persuading the Government that it can regulate itself ahead of the imposition of an independent regulator of football is only intensified by the whole situation.
Add that to the erosion in trust in the powers-that-be over everything from Video Assistant Referees to the can of worms that may well have been opened by this decision in terms of future censure of the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City and lawsuits from clubs up and down the league and you don’t have a healthy situation at the top of England’s football pyramid at all.