Everton’s Director of Football Kevin Thelwell has released a club statement that has criticised the points deduction enforced upon the club by the Premier League.
Thelwell, who described ‘everyone at Everton’ as being ‘united’ has said that ‘we are shocked by what we believe is a wholly disproportionate and unjust ruling by the Premier League’s commission.’
He stopped himself from going into further detail on his views, confirming that they have launched their appeal against the decision and would wait until after the appeal process has concluded before making any further comments on the punishment.
Everton were found guilty of one charge of failing to comply with the Premier League’s version of Financial Fair Play, known as the Profitability and Sustainability Rulings.
The Toffees were deducted ten points from their current tally of 14 with the Premier League initially pushing for a 12-point deduction. The ten point loss means that they have fallen into the bottom three and the relegation places, above rock-bottom Burnley on goal difference.
Everton have become just the third club in Premier League history to suffer a points penalty and it is the biggest points penalty punishment in the league’s history.
In 1997, Middlesbrough were docked three points when they failed to field a team for an away game against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, citing a bug that had gone around the camp leaving them with too few players.
Then, in 2010, Portsmouth received a nine-point penalty for entering into administration. Both Middlesbrough and Portsmouth were eventually relegated at the end of those respective seasons.
Under the management of Sean Dyche, Everton will believe they have a very good chance of avoiding the drop in fairly dramatic circumstances for a third successive season.
The appeal process could take as long as six months and reports suggest it to be unlikely the entire ten points are overturned but there is a good chance that the punishment gets reduced from the original ten.
