Andy Burnham blasts ‘flawed’ Everton commission over rules ‘made up as they went along’
Andy Burnham has accused the independent commission which punished Everton as making the rules up as they went along.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester posted on Twitter on 22 November that he is continuing to find the entire process “more flawed” every time he reads the report from the hearing which left the Toffees with a 10-point deduction and facing compensation claims from rival clubs.
Everton have already signalled their intention to appeal the ruling and fans have planned extensive protests against the Premier League in response to the ruling for the return of top flight football this weekend.
Burnham wrote: “Every time I re-read the Independent Commission’s report on Everton, the more flawed this whole process seems.”
In response to a reply he rejected the idea that he only feels that way as an Everton fan, saying: “More that the rules seemed to be being made up as they went along.”
Hard to argue
Whatever anybody’s view is of whether the club are in the wrong or not it is difficult to escape the same conclusion as Burnham that the process of reaching that conclusion has been put together on the fly.
Some won’t care on the basis that the ends justify the means, but when the entire situation has the look of something arbitrary it’s unlikely to inspire confidence in the authorities, even among fans of other clubs.
Everton have indeed spent too much money under Farhad Moshiri and wasted plenty of it, which few Toffees fans would argue with when they have been protesting for years against the very same thing.
So perhaps it is reasonable that the club are given some sort of sanction, but when they are the only one singled out and then hit with a record-breaking penalty for the English top flight despite various reasonable arguments in mitigation it feels excessive.
And when they appear to have had the rules changed on their accounting considerations with regards to the stadium build midway through the period in question, it increasingly comes across as anything but a level playing field.
If the Premier League now applied the same standards on others then it would be one thing but confidence that will happen is in short supply, leaving the suspicion that is easier to make an example of Everton than to implement a fair system.
In other Everton news, Jim White and Simon Jordan were shocked live on talkSPORT at a discovery about the commission.