Monday’s Premier League matchup between Man City and Everton will take place against this backdrop.
When the Premier League returns to its war with club finances, Everton will not be the center of attention for once. Without a doubt, though, the Blues will be keeping a close eye on things when the lawyers take the league’s battle to Manchester City the following week.
And after a year in which it seemed like Everton became the face of Premier League efforts to show it had teeth when it came to upholding the rules of a beautiful game that is becoming more hazy due to off-the-pitch controversy, they have every right to feel like they have a stake in the process.
Everton has a long and illustrious history of being a trailblazing club. However, it set new records last year when it became the first to have a case heard under the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Regulations (PSR), the first to be punished for a breach, and the first to face numerous other accusations before an independent commission concluded that the club had broken the rules.
In addition to the publicity surrounding those trials and decisions, Everton was hit with two point deductions that put the club’s Premier League career in peril. This risk was only removed when an incredible season on the field helped the team overcome its off-field issues.
However, the eight points of deduction, the litigation and appeals around them, and the ensuing political and regulatory ramifications were all painful experiences. Before every game, whether home and away, Blues fans continue to jeer the league anthem, turning Goodison Park into a site of protest against the football authorities. The injuries remain unhealed.
The feeling that Everton was made an example of by a powerful group fighting a last-ditch effort to thwart independent regulation—which appeared likely until the General Election earlier this year—is one of the reasons they haven’t fully healed.
That sensation has only become stronger. Most of Everton’s issues were self-inflicted; not many would contest the team’s sound management in these troublesome recent years. However, there’s still a feeling that Everton was targeted with a fervor and brutality that haven’t been seen in previous Premier League cases that were tried in the name of upholding the league’s honor.
Due to Everton’s financial rule violation, the club was hit with two devastating deductions while still reeling from the first: a record-breaking points penalty and a second one that came right out of nowhere. Ultimately, the first punishment was lessened on appeal.
A squad that was a whisker away from finishing in the top half of the Premier League standings was forced to look down rather than up, endangering the long-term stability of the club.
On the other hand, there is an unavoidable sense that other people who have had to deal with the Premier League have had better results. Threatened with deductions, six clubs who wanted to join a breakaway European Super League were instead fined pitiful sums.
Nottingham Forest’s PSR violation was nearly twice as serious as Everton’s, which resulted in a 10-point deduction that was subsequently lowered to six points on appeal. However, Forest’s penalty was less severe than both. Before it was decided that the Premier League lacked the authority to file a case against Leicester City due to the club’s relegation to the Championship, the league attempted to file one under PSR.
This leads us to Manchester City and the 115 allegations they are facing, as well as the denials of those charges, that will be heard in a hearing starting on Monday. To some extent, the Premier League isn’t guaranteed a win, but it has the potential to be a historic event in global sports.
In the event that it prevails, the judgments will compromise the fairness of a market that City has long controlled. The Premier League’s authority will be severely harmed if it loses this lawsuit. And the outcome will be compared to how Everton was treated.
The Blues’ trials from the previous year were overshadowed by the City charges, and the club’s sanctions appeared especially harsh considering the scope of the ongoing probe.
It will be expected that City’s penalty provides some consistency to those meted out to previous teams if the club is found guilty of even a small portion of those allegations. A major concern surrounding this case is just what it could be given that Everton’s own stability was jeopardized by a much lesser matter. Everton is going to be there.
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