Jamie Carragher rages at Everton 10 points deduction, blames Premier League and Farhad Moshiri
Jamie Carragher has blamed the Premier League and Farhad Moshiri for the fact Everton were found guilty of a breach of FFP.
The Toffees were handed a ten-point deduction effective immediately, sending them to joint bottom of the Premier League because of a single FFP charge that breached profit and sustainability rules.
And Carragher, writing in The Telegraph (17 November) says that the punishment is “extremely harsh” and says the “ultimate responsibility” lies with majority owner Farhad Moshiri and the Premier League for not intervening earlier.
“I agree with Evertonians that the 10-point penalty is extremely harsh given the circumstances,” he said.
“There is no question Everton have broken the rules and nobody has been more critical about the way the club has been run than me. Farhad Moshiri’s reign has been awful from beginning to end, assuming his sale goes ahead, and the ultimate responsibility for the club’s predicament lies with him.
“Nevertheless, after all the accusations against Everton, to have 10 points deducted because the club losses over three years were £19.5 million more than allowed seems incredibly disproportionate.
“If Everton were guilty of wilfully deceiving the Premier League, failing to be transparent about their financial difficulties, or basically lying about the amounts they are really spending and ‘cooking the books’, I would feel differently.
“It is hard to understand how the Premier League could be working with a club to ensure they remained compliant, watching them complete signings such as those for Nathan Patterson and Vitalii Mykolenko for a combined fee of around £30 million in January 2022, only to later suggest the club has lost around £20 million too much. Why not intervene at that point?”
Spot on
Carragher is well known for being an Everton fan during his youth before he joined Liverpool as a player and switched to being a red.
That can often blur his judgement on the goings on at Goodison Park and has never won him any favour with our fans, but he’s bang on the money here.
The club worked alongside the Premier League on this issue for a prolonged period of time, so why did they keep signing off on deals if they were going to charge us with a breach? Why didn’t they step in and say, ‘you can’t do that’.
As for Moshiri we already know that he’s a terrible owner and while his intentions were probably in the right place at the start, he just kept causing us issues and never found a solution to fixing them which has left us in a hole.
The fact everyone is seemingly on the same page that this punishment is way too extreme and too heavy considering the charge could be a good thing for Everton’s appeal, but the Premier League are trying to make an example of us.
In other Everton news, Gabriel Agbonlahor shares instant reaction to “Minor” Toffees points deduction.