Former great team Everton FC came close to relegation for the first time since 1951 on Monday. Rather than. The whole business may not actually be resolved until the season is over, or it may spill over into the next season. But when you put all this aside, the picture becomes clear. If you squint your eyes. From a certain angle.
The Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) are, rightly or wrongly, starting to become the subject of ridicule. The rules, which had never led to any club receiving sports sanctions before, resulted in two points being fixed this season. In fact, Everton were penalized twice, but their first penalty was reduced on appeal and their second penalty, a two-point deduction for £16m overspending, could still have also been reduced. Nottingham Forest are also appealing their own four-point sanction.
Relating to: Everton could face further punishment after two-point deduction
Fans of any club or any relegation-threatened side or any team that might play for one of those sides, or fans of clubs hoping to gain promotion from the Championship (including league leaders Leicester and themselves the subject of PSR accusations), are a non-ideal situation. What’s the point in biting your nails quickly if the outcome on the field can be second-guessed by the decision of an independent commission? And why can some clubs face immediate sanctions, while others can wait a season (Leicester won’t be punished until next term) and some can postpone doomsday indefinitely by enthusiastically getting involved in the legal profession?
It’s a conundrum that doesn’t reflect well on “the world’s most watched competition.” This has angry fans, without whom, let’s not forget, the game is nothing. This led to unsubstantiated allegations of corruption and rumors of asterisks hanging in the record books. Moreover, it deepened the divisions between the clubs that make up the league and between the clubs and the league itself. This new focus on complying with spending rules has cast a shadow over competition.
But it was the clubs that voted for this. They were the ones who agreed to respond more urgently to alleged PSR violations last summer. A completely new appendix has been added to the Premier League handbook to set out very specific times and dates by which any processes must be undertaken and completed, with all complaints resolved and penalties imposed within the current season. It was a move that showed the Premier League was taking financial irregularities seriously and just as the government was threatening to introduce an independent regulator of the game. Wow.
But just as the Premier League likes to talk about the “unintended consequences” of regulation, taking a tougher stance on cost controls has also had unintended consequences. One of these, the lack of an agreed sanctions tariff, led to Everton being initially penalized with a chilling 10 points, only to have the penalty reduced to six on appeal. This created the impression of chaos, with Andy Burnham, the Everton-supporting mayor of Greater Manchester, going so far as to claim that the Premier League had “abused the process” by recommending that the independent commission be fined (something the Prime Minister has also done). The league insists it was expected to do so because there were no tariffs).
Recently, concerns have also arisen regarding the timings meticulously stated in the appendix. The second charges against Everton, partly for breaches over a different period, were heard only after the first charges were resolved. This meant the results wouldn’t be released until this week, just over a month before the end of the season. The annex states that any appeal must be concluded “at the latest and, if possible, some time before 24 May”; leaving the possibility that the decision might not come until a few days after the end of the season. The written reasons explaining the latest sanction also revealed a third ‘bifurcated’ process which will deal with an additional £6.5m of spending and will almost certainly not be heard of until next term.
Could these problems have been avoided if the Premier League and its clubs had taken more time to develop a stricter sanctions regime? Maybe not, but it’s hard to resist the feeling of everything falling apart after being hastily arranged. It’s a situation made bleak by the fact that Premier League clubs have already decided to create a completely new system of PSR rules. This change of heart coincidentally resulted in the Premier League failing to comply with the UK government’s request to offer the EFL a better financial redistribution.
There is one last unintended consequence that must be anticipated. For a competition that brings joy to so many people, the Premier League needs to be more careful about creating doubt among those who follow it. Just like the video assistant referee system, which was the subject of a botched implementation that left fans sitting for minutes waiting for a crucial goal to be disallowed for an impenetrable infringement, PSR is now a widely known and widely used acronym. swear. It became a symbol of a game that people thought was rigged.
This is not a good place to be and the people responsible have been identified. It was the clubs that voted for these rules but, more importantly, it was the clubs that broke them and forced the creation of these rules in the first place due to a fundamental inability or unwillingness to manage football teams sustainably. Total loss estimates for the 17 clubs that have provided financial information for the 2022-23 season (some have not) exceed £600 million. This is exactly the heart of the problem. These massive and ongoing losses determine most of the decisions made in football. They are likely to lead to a few more undesirable consequences yet.
-
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to email a response of up to 300 words for publication in our letters section, please click here.