Felt I had to have my say. Credit to one of the posts this morning that inspired me to lift a few things and tweak
Dear Caroline
I am writing to you as a concerned Everton season ticket holder and football fan. I take great pride in my club, our history and heritage, our work in the community and our status as founder members of the football league.
Firstly I’d like to thank you on behalf of all football fans for standing up for us and our game, which has been eroded to the point of being unrecognisable. Super Leagues, VAR controversy, eye watering salaries, the same clubs winning all the trophies for the last 30 years, match day costs, unsavoury owners mean the game is as far away from the public as it has ever been.
I write specifically in thanks and recognition of your questioning to the Premier League and their Chief Executive Officer Richard Masters.
I watched with great interest the parliamentary committee and the disdain evident from him to both the panel and historic clubs like Everton and Nottingham Forest. In his world and the product of the Premier League, we are simply seen as fodder making up the numbers.
I am delighted you have asked for the minutes of the Premier League meeting on 10th August as I believe these are fundamental to our case versus the Premier League and their “Independent Panel”. A kangaroo court is the other name for this type of “hearing”. There are huge discrepancies in the leagues case that in any other arena would be thrown and laughed out.
However without any proper regulation and the freedom of their open sanction policy, my belief is that this panel was hand selected by the Premier League and convened with the specific purpose of hitting Everton hard, to show their force with the impending threat of an independent regulator.
If you follow football as closely as I do you’ll see the Premier League very much likes operating “in the shadows”. Leaked stories to the press via known journalists, the suppression of stories via the likes of Sky Sports and the lobbying of ministers against independent regulation is very much the modus operandi of this Premier League.
Indeed after your committee the BBC asked the Premier League for comment on your request for evidence and a source is quoted that your request and the committee is “political showboating”.
The Premier Leagues goal is to protect the elite, to keep the same clubs at the top of the game and regulate via force with their draconian financial rules. These rules aren’t established to stop clubs going out of business or for financial stability. They’re designed to halt progress of clubs with ambition that want to threaten the elite.
A perfect example of how these rules work is directly affecting the two clubs charged with PSR breaches. Nottingham Forest and Everton both have wealthy owners who have been prepared to spend but because of Premier Leagues “profit and sustainability” rules, in the last 12 months both have had to sell their best player to the same club (Tottenham Hotspur) to meet these regulations.
Just to put that more clearly. The rules dictate that we have to sell our assets to meet a calculation. Not a business choice, not a free decision but to appease a calculation that’s over 10 years old. And in doing so weakens us and strengthens the elite in the same competition we’re in. I’d argue that’s nothing like sustainability.
No Evertonian is sat here with pride at the state of our club currently. Nor are they saying we don’t have a case to answer.
What we are saying is that point deductions for us and other clubs are a blunt instrument that should be removed from the Premier Leagues armoury. Indeed we note the Independent Regulator is ruling out points deductions as a rule to prevent the impact on fans and players.
There are some key facts around Everton and this ongoing case that are often lost in the tribalism of football and the blackout media reporting of some crucial channels like Sky Sports.
- Everton have been run and mismanaged by a shambolic owner, chairman and sycophantic board of directors for the last 7 years.
- The Premier League and our owner, chairman and board have been working closely together working on our spending to mitigate and limit issues as we approached financial limits post Covid.
- Everton have the lowest net spend in the division over the last 3 seasons. As a result we have tumbled down the league and sold our best players.
- Everton fans have protested against and raised publicly the mismanagement of our club. We were vilified by our own chairman and the wider media with slander and lies about their safety at games.
- The Premier League have changed some significant elements around PSR applications specifically loan repayments etc during the process which triggered a breach after managing these issues closely with Everton. These are related to stadium financing as Everton try to push on and be more profitable by building and self funding a new £800 million stadium. The economic and social value aspects of this construction are significant to one of the poorest regions in the UK
- We believe that the process and punishment handed out to Everton for these breaches unjustified, unfair, rushed and illogical, and made in an attempt to stave off independent regulation of the Premier League
The complete disdain the Premier Leagues “independent panel” had for Everton’s “technical overspend” was breathtaking. The club offered 4 mitigations
- We lost one of our main players to an FA suspension rendering him unplayable and unsellable. Said player contributed more than 30% of goals and assists per season.
- a sponsor lost because of international conflict and political sanctions
- a new £800million ground being built self funded in a post Covid inflation crisis.
- The rushed and forced sale of one of our best players under market value due to FFP rules and financial reporting deadlines.
All of these were “considered” and rejected by the panel. Despite the fact most rational people would argue that they could all help to explain why there was a £19.5 million “technical breach” and that no sporting advantage had been gained. These cannot be just brushed aside like an everyday occurrence they are huge mitigating factors. To then be hit with the biggest ever sporting sanction in premier league history is almost too staggering to believe.
Being found guilty and our subsequent punishment was pre-determined hence the importance that the minutes of the PL meeting on 10th August must be published. You only have to look at the panel rejecting the Premier Leagues request and rationale for 10 points….and then still being hit with EXACT same penalty. It’s collusion and the PL playing to the gallery in the face of an independent regulator. Everton are the sacrificial lamb and the easy target.
Indeed the “open sanctions policy” that the Premier League employs means that the League can fine each of the Big 6 clubs, £3 million each for trying to destroy the very fabric of our game by trying to join the super league. Rumours exist that they set their own “punishment” and have yet to pay the full amounts. However the “independent panel” considers that a fine is not suitable in Everton’s case as we have wealthy owners! The irony in that is simply outstanding. The league is now owned by billionaires and nation states.
It would remiss of me not to mention the motivation of the “independent panel”. These hand picked individuals all lose a lucrative career as advisors and members of committees and panels should independent regulation come in. That may well bring into question conflict of interest given it’s actually not an independent panel and it’s paid for and selected by the Premier League.
Two months post our verdict and the lodging of an appeal and we are no closer to knowing our fate in regards to the initial points deduction, with another potential points deduction hanging over us resulting from the same broken, illogical P&S rules that they’ve already hit us with that simply aren’t fit for purpose.
The Premier League are over 20 weeks and counting on deciding on our new owners via their “fit and proper persons test”. Everton, put simply, are in total and utter limbo at the hands of the Premier League. We can’t sign players during this transfer window while we await our new owners. We don’t know how or when our appeal will be held. We don’t know our financial or football future. The repercussions on our fans, the community we operate in, the mental health (collective and individual) is staggering.
The Premier League may well decide our potential new owners shouldn’t take over due to their tests. Fine. Inform them and let us find new buyers.
When we should be excited about the season and the end of the transfer window we’re discussing lawyers, barristers and amortisation of players contracts.
To allow this issue to pollute the league whilst important matches are being played is just mind boggling, and it affects the entire league, not just Everton.
We have very few friends in the media currently and have balanced fair and competent people like Andy Burnham trying to speak to the media and then having his interviews pulled at the request of the Premier League. If that doesn’t show that the Premier League are in no fit state to regulate then I don’t know what does. They simply have too much power if they can control the narrative of a channel they sell their rights to.
Everton have earned 27 points to date in this league. They must be given back in their entirety. That is the only fair way this appeal ends, then a proper regulatory body in charge of ALL aspects of our game that works with all clubs. Not some watered down version that protects their elite cash cows.
Mr Masters in his evidence before you said “this game is nothing without fans” He’s so right. But nobody believes him. And it doesn’t feel like it.
