Everton: Kieran Maguire moots ‘inconsistency’ after Nottingham Forest sanction on Sky Sports
Kieran Maguire admits there “appears to be an inconsistency” between the rulings against Everton and Nottingham Forest.
The University of Liverpool football finance expert told Sky Sports on 18 March that with the latter being deducted four points for a breach greater in size than the one the Toffees saw 10 points taken away for, reduced to six on appeal, it suggested the Everton sanction was “intuitively harsh”.
He noted that Forest’s commission had highlighted their satisfaction at the cooperation received from the club, a point which saw the finger pointed at Goodison Park during the hearing, but he questioned whether the the lower penalty was “lenient” or the higher one “harsh” given the relative size of the respective breaches.
The most recent commission themselves note that, even though Forest’s limit was lower after been in the EFL for part of the relevant period, their breach was 77% larger than Everton’s and 57% of their allowable threshold compared to the Toffees’ “which was 19% of its applicable (albeit larger) threshold” (18 March)”.
Maguire said (1m 40s): “From what I have seen of the commission’s report… they felt that Forest were quite proactive in the way that they dealt with the commission and that was appreciated, it reduced the costs on both sides. The Premier League has incurred substantial legal costs over the course of the last year or two.
“But if I was an Everton fan [I’d feel] does this now mean the six points given to Everton feels intuitively harsh? Because what we’re not being told is if it’s a three-point penalty for breaking the rules then that’s fine. If it’s going to be another three points for the extent of the breach it either seems that Forest’s has been lenient or Everton’s has been harsh, and that’s before we get to the mitigation.”
He later added that the Premier League has “perhaps not helped itself” by failing to agree a proper framework of sanctions years ago, leaving clubs to be “spending money effectively blind”, leaving us with “what appears to be an inconsistency with regards to the two rulings we’ve seen in recent weeks”.
Everton and Nottingham Forest dealt with unequally?
There really shouldn’t be a situation where two sides struggling for their lives in the Premier League end up being played off against each other but that is essentially where this has ended up.
It seems clear that the system by which the league’s spending rules were actually supposed to be implemented had holes in it, and perhaps if it had been made plain in the first place what punishment would follow what breach many of the issues clubs are now experiencing could have been avoided.
That the current system is now on its way out, but not before Everton have been hit twice by the imperfect rules, seems to show they weren’t fit for purpose, even if there are bound to be new issues after a change.
Fans of both clubs might quite validly feel that each sides reasons for overspending are reasonable, and they may well be right in the eyes of the average observer whose view is not clouded by club allegiances.
But they’ve been cracked down on all the same, so if they are going to be punished for breaking the rules then the least everyone might hope for is some sort of uniformity.
If Everton’s £19.5million breach was considered a “serious breach that requires a significant penalty” by their original commission panel (17 November) which imposed a 10-point penalty it seems nonsensical for Forest to breach their own limit by £34.5m and end up with a far lower sanction.
If, as the commission decided that both breaches fell within the “significant band” then it, once again, seems awfully inconvenient for Everton that they are penalised the same amount as one approaching double the size.
In other Everton news, Alan Myers predicts the Toffees may now be able to avoid a second points deduction.
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