You had to have your eyes everywhere – in the street, in the stands but also in the sky – and your ears wide open to see the extent of the discontent among Everton supporters. At Goodison Park, where the Toffees hosted Manchester United on Sunday (3-0 defeat), fans of the team now 19th in the Premier League brandished red cards with the message “Premier League corrupt”, to the chant of “Premier League, corrupt as f***”.
On Saturday, above Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, a plane even unfurled a banner reading the same message: “Premier League = corrupt”. Same spectacle in the streets of Liverpool, where a huge banner had covered the facade of the Brick Pub, a place known to fans: “Where there is power, greed and money… there is corruption “.
Why such protests?
On November 17, Everton was sanctioned in an unprecedented way in the history of the English championship: the immediate withdrawal of ten points for having “breached the league’s rules regarding profitability and sustainability”. According to the independent committee responsible for the sanction: “losses of 124.5 million pounds (€143 million) for the 2021/2022 season, which exceeds the losses authorized by league rules by 19.5 million”. A situation similar to that of Juventus in Italy last season.
The Everton club has already appealed, saying it is “both shocked and disappointed” by the decision and by the sanction, “totally disproportionate and unfair”. This is the sound that resonates most insistently around this decision, while the Premier League has rarely, if ever, struck so hard against a deviation from one of its clubs. The cases, still ongoing, of Manchester City, accused of having violated the financial regulations of the Premier League more than a hundred times between 2009 and 2018, and of Chelsea, whose finances for the period 2012-2019 are under scrutiny of an investigation, will be all the more scrutinized.
What is the current situation of the club?
With this reduction of ten points, Everton went from 14th to 19th place, which it occupies tied on points (4) with the red lantern Burnley. Sportingly, and while awaiting the result of the appeal, the Toffees therefore find themselves in a difficult sporting situation, which comes at a time when its financial health has been poor for several seasons.
The club was owned, until September, by Anglo-Iranian businessman Fahrad Moshiri. Covid and then the outbreak of war in Ukraine, which deprived Moshiri and Everton of a valuable financial link with oligarch Alisher Usmanov, made it one of, if not the most loss-making club in the Premier League. League.
Toffees fans thought they had gotten their heads above water when the announcement of the club’s takeover by 777 Partners, an investment fund which also owns Red Star (National), but also the clubs of Genoa (Italy) ), Sevilla (Spain), Vasco da Gama (Brazil), Standard Liège (Belgium), Melbourne Victory (Australia) and Hertha Berlin (Germany).
A survey recently published by the media Josimar Football revealed that almost all of these clubs were drowning in losses of sometimes several tens of millions of euros. Not necessarily reassuring for the future of Everton.
