Everton Docked 10 Points, a Premier League Record, in Financial Case

Everton Docked 10 Points, a Premier League Record, in Financial Case

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Everton, a founding member of England’s Premier League that has fallen into financial crisis, faced yet more pain on Friday after it was given a 10-point penalty for breaching the league’s economic rules. The punishment, the largest points deduction in the league’s history, sent Everton to the bottom of the standings and left it facing the threat of relegation from England’s top division at the end of the season.
The penalty was not a surprise, as the Premier League had come under pressure to act
by rival teams
angered by Everton’s rule breaches. But it will deepen the crisis that has engulfed Everton as it operates under a cloud of hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and it raised the prospect that a far more serious punishment could await wealthy rivals like Manchester City and Chelsea in separate financial cases.
An independent league commission hearing the case against Everton found that the club had breached the league’s profit and sustainability rules. It ruled the points deduction must be applied immediately, which dropped Everton to 19th place in the 20-team league and on the same points total, 4, as last-place Burnley.
At the end of each season, the three worst finishers in the Premier League — the world’s richest domestic sporting competition — are relegated out of the division and into the second-tier Championship.
Everton said it was “shocked and disappointed” by the scale of the penalty, which its interim chief executive, Colin Chong, called “
disproportionate and wholly unjust
.” The club immediately announced its intent to appeal.
The team’s perilous financial state has required regular cash infusions from external sources to allow the club to continue operating. The most recent loan came from 777 Partners, an American group that in September agreed to acquire the storied club. That deal has not yet been approved by the Premier League and the Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator, amid
questions about 777 Partners’ own finances
.
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