Journalist claims Everton may have been saved thanks to Premier League points deduction
Everton may have been saved from a much worse fate thanks to Financial Fair Play rules, according to journalist Mark Jones.
The Toffees are still coming to terms with the 10-point deduction they were hit with last week, seeing them drop into the Premier League relegation zone.
While Everton fans are furious with the outcome, which will be appealed by the club, Jones believes some good could ultimately come out of it – assuming relegation is avoided.
Writing for The Mirror’s online edition [23 November], Jones said: “I’m not expecting many Everton fans to share this view right now because the anger over the excessive 10 point deduction will still be very raw, but there is an argument that Financial Fair Play has just saved the club. So in one sense at least it is working.
“Without it Everton would have carried on spending beyond their means, trying to marry the Bramley-Moore Dock project – a really impressive one which will produce one of the best stadiums in the country – with spending large sums of money on players they thought that they needed.
“It is those transfer misfires which have got them into the state they’ve been in in the past couple of seasons, when they’ve relied on the undoubted spirit of the fans to drag a deeply underperforming squad away from the bottom three.”
Not over yet
The dust has now settled on last week’s verdict, but this case is far from over. A number of teams are expected to push ahead with legal action, which really would be disastrous from Everton’s perspective.
Had it been ‘only’ a 10-point deduction, which does not look like being enough to condemn the Toffees to relegation, then this would have been seen as a wake-up call.
However, the possibility of having to pay out £300million to aggrieved rivals has led to talk of possible administration. Not so much saving the club, then, but killing it.
There will be many more months of talk regarding this case before it is truly over with, and all supporters can hope for is that it ends with Everton still a functioning Premier League club.
In the meantime, everyone connected with Everton will be waiting eagerly for any updates of the situations at Chelsea and Manchester City.
In other Everton news, David Ornstein has mooted “liquidation” as rival clubs prepare to take legal action.