Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers are among the Premier League clubs watching on amid claims Everton could potentially face even more sanctions after they were deemed to have broken Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules by an independent commission.
The Toffees were found guilty of breaching FFP regulations, with the punishment of a ten point deduction seeing them drop from 14th in the table down into the relegation zone to 19th, level on points with bottom-of-the-table Burnley. It means there's now a 10 point gap between Gary O'Neil's side and the drop zone, with Sean Dyche's men also 21 points off of Unai Emery's side.
A statement from the league read: "An independent Commission has imposed an immediate deduction of 10 points on Everton FC for a breach of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSRs).
"The Premier League issued a complaint against the Club and referred the case to an independent Commission earlier this year. During the proceedings, the Club admitted it was in breach of the PSRs for the period ending Season 2021/22 but the extent of the breach remained in dispute.
"Following a five-day hearing last month, the Commission determined that Everton FC’s PSR Calculation for the relevant period resulted in a loss of £124.5million, as contended by the Premier League, which exceeded the threshold of £105million permitted under the PSRs. The Commission concluded that a sporting sanction in the form of a 10-point deduction should be imposed."
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Everton's financial losses of £372million over the last three years is more than £250million above what the Premier League's guidelines allows clubs to lose, but they could now face similar penalties as the Premier League makes a new assessment of the situation. The penalty covers a breach for a financial period stretching over the 48 months leading to the end of June 2022, with the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons averaged due to the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning that the books up until June 2023 are yet to be accounted for.
This has sparked concerns that, with the new assessment made by the Premier League, Everton could face more sanctions once the club has filed its accounts for the year to the end of June 2023. This is due to the financial period covering that year, as well as the two that preceded it, both of which formed part of the investigation by the independent commission that sat last month.
In 2021, Everton submitted losses of £120.9m while in 2022 their losses amounted to £44.7m. With a combined £105m of losses permitted across that timeframe, it means that they'd have to make at least £60m of profit from June 2022 to June 2023 alone in order to avoid another sanction - something they've have no protection from according to the Liverpool ECHO.
Ultimately, the ten point deduction is a hammer blow to the side, whose performances on the pitch have shown a side capable of staying up although the deduction already handed to them, plus the potential further sanctions, means their survival will be unclear until the final day of the season.
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