If I were a betting man I would expect the announcement to be made tomorrow. Whilst the IC , despite what some feel, won’t be dictated to by the PL board the commission members will be acutely aware of the impact of their announcement.
I would be surprised if the IC will change the numbers in terms of the £19.5 million gap and sorry I don’t think that a lot of the arguments re mitigation are compelling.
I have alway said that the sanction should never have been 10 points but unfortunately there are those sitting on the PL board that are fixated on a sporting sanction by way of a points deduction being appropriate. The appeal board will be well aware of the political landscape but I do expect that 10 points are reduced down potentially to 5 maybe even 3.
The potential suspension of any points would be a worry with the second charge incoming and whilst we have no idea of the numbers for 22/23 and as I said earlier I can’t see the £19.5 million being reduced as much because the ability to enter additional evidence at an appeal is limited but at the hearing for the second charge the club should have taken the hint from the IC at the first hearing suggesting that the sum paid by way of transfer levy could have been a mitigating factor had the argument been constructed in a different way.
As I say we don’t know the 22/23 numbers part of the argument re the 21/22 impact was that there was a downward trend if that is replicated then I would suspect that could justify a suspended points sanction but if the 3 year numbers go above £124.5 million that would probably open the door for a current season deduction.
Having said all that I personally think that if there hadn’t been a points deduction you would be a good 15-20 points away from the drop zone.
FFP was never meant to be this way the riches in the PL make it highly unlikely that unless there are massive outside shockwave to finances that a clubs very existence would be put in jeopardy. It really is a sledge hammer to crack a nut if no other change had been made the £105 million should have been increased along with inflation.
I can’t imagine a PL without Everton but then I can’t imagine an Everton without Goodison.