Premier League Hand Everton 10-Point Deduction

The Premier League has deducted 10 points from Everton, following an investigation into a breach of profit and sustainability rules.

The Goodison Park club insist they are “shocked and disappointed” by the punishment and will appeal.

An official club statement read: “Both the harshness and severity of the sanction imposed by the Commission are neither a fair nor a reasonable reflection of the evidence submitted”.

The problem centres around the club’s initial spend on their new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock. Everton believe they have a number of mitigating factors, which they explained to the commission. One issue Everton faced was having to pull out of a lucrative naming rights deal for the stadium with Alisher Usmanov’s holding company, USM, which was worth about £200m, after Russia invasion of Ukraine.

The ruling surpasses the nine-point deduction handed to Portsmouth in 2010 for going into administration. Middlesbrough are the only other club to have been punished in this manner. They received a three-point deduction for postponing a fixture against Blackburn at short notice, saying they were unable to field a team because of injury and illness.

Everton said in a statement: “The club believes that the commission has imposed a wholly disproportionate and unjust sporting sanction

… Everton maintains that it has been open and transparent in the information it has provided to the Premier League and that it has always respected the integrity of the process. The club does not recognise the finding that it failed to act with the utmost good faith and it does not understand this to have been an allegation made by the Premier League during the course of proceedings. Both the harshness and severity of the sanction imposed by the commission are neither a fair nor a reasonable reflection of the evidence submitted.

“The Club will also monitor with great interest the decisions made in any other cases concerning the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules.”

The deduction is the largest in the history of the Premier League.

It takes immediate effect, plunging Sean Dyche’s team into the relegation zone.