Ex-Everton employee worries for new punishment, accuses Tottenham of ‘illegal’ activity
Goodison News is delighted to welcome aboard our brilliant new columnist Bryan King, the former goalkeeper who spent over eight years as a scout at Everton and 28 years in total in first-team scouting roles. Bryan also spent six years on Tottenham’s recruitment team and 11 years scouting at Aston Villa across two different spells…
Bryan King is worried about a further points deduction for Everton following their 10-point deduction earlier this season.
The Toffees were docked 10 points by the Premier League in November for breaching the competition’s Profit and Sustainability rules.
The club have appealed the decision [official Everton website, 1 December], but King is not convinced that is the wisest course of action to take.
Speaking to Goodison News, King said: “I hope the Premier League stick with their guns if Everton have done what they’ve done. But I’m still worried about the chance of a further deduction of points, which keeps cropping up, because of a further breaking of the rules.
“But surely if that’s going to happen then there are going to be other clubs, big clubs, who must be fearing that they could also come into that deduction of point category, maybe starting the season with minus points. This we have to wait and see.
“If I was Everton, I’d have been thinking ‘10 points aren’t so bad. Why bring it up? Why keep pushing it and pushing it? Let’s take our punishment, save the club and play Premier League football next year.’
“But if that’s what they want to do, appealing and appealing, I think it’s been going on long enough. You see the lower clubs in the Championship, League One and League Two that have been deducted points, but this is the first real thing where clubs are starting to think, ‘hang on, do we come into that category or not?‘.
“Tottenham for example, over their transfer dealings, using agents who have been representing club and player, which is illegal. Where does that go?”
The Times reported in November that a “private arbitration panel found in 2010 that an unlicensed agent, Mitchell Thomas, played a key role in the transfer” of Jermain Defoe to Portsmouth in 2008.
In other Everton news, a journalist has shared an “all-or-nothing” Toffees verdict as a Premier League relegation claim is made.