Jamie Carragher backs Everton, Nottingham Forest outrage at ‘joke’ Chelsea PSR move
Jamie Carragher has branded Chelsea’s accounting practices “a joke” when Everton and Nottingham Forest have been deducted points for profit and sustainability breaches.
The Sky Sports pundit, speaking live on the broadcaster’s coverage of the Toffees’ trip to Stamford Bridge on 15 April, scoffed at the fact that the Todd Boehly-led club have sold two hotels to a company run by the owners to help counterbalance stark figures in their most recent accounts.
And the former Liverpool defender feels Everton and Forest fans’ upset over the practice when they have been deducted eight and four points respectively so far this term, pending appeals, is understandable.
Carragher said (6.42pm): “I understand they’re frustrated, certainly with the Premier League and there’s reasons why I think.
“The fact that there’s been different panels looking at different clubs, the 10 points initially I get the frustration there.
“Certainly in the last few days when you see what Chelsea have done in terms of selling hotels to basically themselves to make sure they pass the PSR, I think is a bit of a joke.
“You can understand the frustrations of Everton and Nottingham Forest supporters on the back of that.”
Everton cracked down on as Chelsea slip through loophole?
Despite spending obscene amounts of money in the past two seasons the London Blues have so far managed to avoid a spending charge, when the Merseyside Blues have been punished for two and face the threat of a third next season.
In many ways it is not so much the fact that the Stamford Bridge ownership have used the hotel sales in an attempt to help balance the books, but that, according to them, the Premier League are happy with it.
The Toffees ownership, for whom there is no love lost among the club’s fans, seemingly attempted to be creative with their own accounting coming out of the Covid-19 period, and by contrast they appear to have conversely been punished for trying to pull a fast one.
Chelsea will do whatever they can to avoid similar punishments to Everton and few would expect them not to use any avenue that is open to them, but selling hotels on the Stamford Bridge site to themselves hardly seems to match the purpose of the PSR system, even though that has already been deemed unfit for purposed and replacement rules are on the way in.
There has long been a suspicion among Evertonians that the so-called Big Six wouldn’t face the same sort of harsh treatment the Toffees have, with the historical charged hanging over Manchester City regularly cited, and if Chelsea are waved through on this it won’t do anything to change that.
It is difficult to see how Boehly and company can continue to avoid sanction further down the line, and perhaps Pep Guardiola and the treble-winners eventually get the book thrown at them as well.
But at this stage it is a bitter pill to swallow for Everton fans who have watched their club sell key players repeatedly and still get back-to-back points deductions imposed on them, while Chelsea have spent £1billion and can seemingly use a backdoor route to avoid punishment, and continue to be linked to signing star players from Goodison Park on top.
In other Everton news, a Farhad Moshiri reaction has been claimed as the threat of administration looms with the takeover on the brink.
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