Loading player
Last Friday the Everton football club was penalized by ten points in the English championship table, the Premier League, for violating its financial regulations. It had never happened that in the English championship – the most followed and richest in the world – a team was penalized in this way once the season had started: before the sanction, Everton was fourteenth in the table, now they are joint last with Burnley.
The news is causing a lot of discussion because it involves a historic team in the English championship, punished as never before and now at risk of relegation, which could be the first in 72 years. But there’s more, because the Premier League is investigating the financial statements of other teams, including Manchester City, champions of England for three years. City has been under investigation since last February with much more serious and far-reaching accusations than those leveled at Everton: there is talk of “hundreds of violations” of the financial regulations.
Everton, which is based in Liverpool and owned by Iranian-born billionaire Farhad Moshiri, was indicted last March. The Premier League’s financial rules give clubs a maximum loss of £105 million over a three-year period, with a range of tax relief and discounts provided for investments in infrastructure, youth systems, community projects and damage caused by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic . According to the Premier League, net of all these reliefs, Everton still accumulated losses of 124.5 million pounds, therefore more than the allowed amount of around 19 million.
The Liverpool team had initially denied any wrongdoing, but then at the hearing held last month they admitted the overrun, albeit by only £9.7 million, asking for a reduced sanction for four reasons in particular: the impact of the pandemic on the budgets, some misunderstandings on the financing methods for the construction of his new stadium, the unexpected termination of the contract of a rather expensive player and finally the collaboration offered during the investigations.
However, the Premier League did not accept Everton’s version, which only attempted to remedy the situation in recent months, after having ascertained the criticality of his position, and punished him with the maximum sanction. The club will appeal and the matter could continue for months, a bit like what happened in Italy with Juventus. In the case of Everton, however, all this could have negative consequences on two things in particular, both quite important: the negotiations for the sale of the company to the US group 777 Partners (which owns Genoa in Italy) and the completion of the works on the its new stadium in Liverpool’s dockland.
Club Statement. pic.twitter.com/hyFfl9vWxO
— Everton (@Everton) November 17, 2023
“The other Premier League teams have been surprisingly silent because they know it could happen to them too,” David Ornstein, Premier League expert for the sports news site, said on Monday. The Athletic. Two in particular could be more worried than the others these days: Manchester City and Chelsea.
The first, owned by the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, has been under investigation for almost a year on charges of not having provided a true and correct account of its financial situation for the previous three years, of not having included all the required details on remuneration of players and coaches, of having failed to comply with financial regulations on several points and of not having cooperated with the investigations.
City had previously been investigated on similar charges by UEFA, who initially excluded them from European competitions in 2020. The exclusion was withdrawn on appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which however did not completely exonerate the club: in fact it considered that there was not enough valid evidence to ascertain the disputed violations and punished the lack of cooperation with a fine of 10 million euros.
Chelsea, on the other hand, has not yet been formally accused of any violation, but its own management, which has been under US ownership since 2022, has reported to the Premier League a series of discrepancies found in the company financial statements under the management of the previous owner, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who allegedly used offshore companies to make undeclared payments on behalf of the club. Also in this case UEFA has already intervened by fining Chelsea 8.6 million pounds.
– Read also: The story of the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz