Punishing Everton and Nottingham Forest for FFP Violations: Contrasting Treatment with Manchester City

It took almost four and a half years of work for the Premier League to put together the case against Manchester City, in which the English champion was accused of 115 violations of the organization’s regulations.

According to reports which have since leaked to the media, but which neither the Premier League nor Manchester City have confirmed, these offenses ranged from providing incorrect financial information to concealing payments to certain players, including Yaya Touré, non-compliance with the rules of financial fair play applicable in England and in Europe and from the illicit recruitment of minor players to the refusal to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.

Everton and Nottingham Forest were quickly sanctioned

Manchester City had done everything to prevent the general public from knowing about the investigation, and the Daily Mail had to appear at the High Court to finally be informed. On February 6, 2023, the PL finally published the expected press releasein which the multiple articles of its regulations that Manchester City were accused of having violated were listed, without it being explained how.

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February 6, 2023. Over fourteen months ago. While Everton, for the second time this season, has just been sanctioned with a deduction (of two points, on this occasion) for actions which, at first glance, appear much less serious than those attributed to the club Sheikh Mansour. Gold, less than three months were enough for the case to be investigated and for the independent commission responsible for the case to deliver its verdict. Nottingham Forest, implicated at the same time, had waited even less time to know his fate: two months and three days.

Likewise, the sanction which had previously hit Everton

was imposed after only six months of deliberation. Not fourteen. Fourteen which, in the case of City, will become fifteen, sixteen and probably twenty, no one really knows, even if it seems that the commission responsible for deciding on the question should meet during the autumn. Why such a difference in treatment?

Punishing City means punishing Armstrong at the height of his domination

Everton fans are crying foul, and they are not the only ones doing so. Ultimately, what they were accused of, and what they were found guilty of, was only incompetence, the incompetence that characterized Farhad Moshiri’s reign over the blue half of Merseyside. If Everton spent lavishly, Everton did not cheat. Everton did not falsify their accounts. Everton did not bribe the parents of football overachievers. Everton did not hide part of Carlo Ancelotti’s salary using club affiliates, as City are suspected of doing in the case of Roberto Mancini. And Everton have agreed to cooperate fully with Premier League investigators. This did not prevent the punishment from being severe, and swift – while Everton’s financial situation is so critical that the risk of liquidation is real (**).

Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City speaks with Jack Grealish

Credit: Eurosport

How can we avoid concluding that there is one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the rest of the world? The Premier League can afford to sanction Everton and Nottingham Forest, who are no longer what they once were, but it is quite another thing to hit the club which gave England a European title in last May, and could give him another one a year later. A club which, five times in six years, has finished at the top of the English championship rankings, all while playing football of a quality, for some, unsurpassed in our era.

Punishing Everton – and Forest – is punishing a classic runner at the end of his career. Punishing City is punishing Lance Armstrong at the height of his domination. Because if the judging commission accepted the merits of even only part of the 115 charges retained by the PL, the sanction could only be the heaviest, especially since City has apparently- he does everything to make the task of investigators as difficult as possible. Reduction of points, that goes without saying. Withdrawal of titles, why not?

By hitting City, the Premier League would be hitting itself

But by hitting City, the Premier League would be hitting itself. She would bring down her standard bearer. In view of its own regulations, which its other clubs intend to see applied in all their rigor, it has no choice. And it’s too late to turn back now. The question is when the Gordian knot will finally be cut.

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As we said above, we are talking about next fall for a first decision of the judging commission, of which it is very likely that Manchester City, which is represented by – among others – the former lawyer of Boris Johnson, Lord Pannick (**), will appeal, if the said commission establishes the guilt of the club. The number of charges is in itself an obstacle to a more rapid resolution of the dispute. City’s defenders will have dissected and disputed every comma, initiating a constant a-thou, a-me between the two parties, like two Guilermo Vilas confronting each other on clay or rugby backs kicking 22 in 22 to disgust the public.

It is not now that the Citizens will start cooperating with their accusers. The moment of truth will come later, and some would like this “later” to return to “never”. It’s up to the Premier League to convince a doubting public that it is not one of them.

Everton received a ten-point deduction, reduced to six on appeal. (**) The Premier League has still not approved the takeover of the club by the Miami investment fund 777 Partners, which was to repay a loan of more than 170 million euros to an Everton creditor not later this Monday, April 15, but is currently unable to do so. This reimbursement is one of the preliminary conditions imposed by the Premier League for the takeover of the club by American investors, also owners of Genoa, Standard de Liège, Hertha and Red Star and shareholders of Vasco da Gama, Melbourne Victory and Seville. (***) In honor of whom Manchester City fans had
2024-04-12 21:40:00
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