Everton’s chances of kicking off the 2025/26 season in their new dockside stadium as a Premier League club – along with the additional benefits of Premier League TV earnings and merchandise sales – have received a major boost after their 10-point penalty from the league was reduced to six points on appeal today.
Everton were hit with the 10-point penalty, the biggest sporting sanction in Premier League history, for breaching financial rules by £19.5m up to 2021-22, last November.
The club have denied the breach, although they admitted during October’s hearing to breaking the permitted £105m losses over a three-year period by £9.7m. Everton claimed several mitigating factors in the initial hearing, including the costs of borrowing to develop the new stadium, sanctions imposed on sponsorships linked to Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov and Covid’s effect on player sales, which the first hearing rejected.
Everton said in a statement following today’s appeal decision: “While the club is still digesting the appeal board’s decision, we are satisfied our appeal has resulted in a reduction in the points sanction.
“We understand the appeal board considered the 10-point deduction originally imposed to be inappropriate when assessed against the available benchmarks of which the club made the commission aware, including the position under the relevant EFL regulations, and the nine-point deduction that is imposed under the Premier League’s own rules in the event of insolvency.
“The club is also particularly pleased with the appeal board’s decision to overturn the original commission’s finding that the club failed to act in utmost good faith. That decision, along with reducing the points deduction, was an incredibly important point of principle for the club on appeal. The club, therefore, feels vindicated in pursuing its appeal.”
The club still faces a second Premier League charge for the period ending 2022-23, which it also addressed in the statement saying: “Notwithstanding the appeal board’s decision, and the positive outcome, the club remains fully committed to cooperating with the Premier League in respect of the ongoing proceedings brought for the accounting period ending in June 2023.
“The club is still considering the wider implications of the decision and will make no further comment at this time other than to place on record its thanks to our Fan Advisory Board and other fan groups throughout this process, and to all Evertonians for their ongoing support and patience.”
The immediate result of today’s decision was that Everton climbed two places in the table to 15th without kicking a ball in anger. The decision did not have an immediate effect on the relegation places, but the potential for litigation from clubs who may ultimately find themselves facing the drop (and indeed those who already did last season) on account of the league’s apparent inability to agree on how many points Everton have is a regular hot topic in the sports pages and football phone-in shows.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, an Everton season ticket holder, is just one high profile figure to have chipped in on the matter. Burnham has written to the chair of the Premier League, Alison Brittain, and secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Lucy Frazer, accusing the Premier League of “regulatory malpractice” and demanding the penalty be declared null and void.
Burnham wrote: “The fact that the Premier League sought to introduce a new sanctions policy in the middle of this process amounts, in my view, to an abuse of process…From my experience of regulation, introducing new rules in the late stages of a process would be regarded as regulatory malpractice.”
