Everton at risk of points deduction over Premier League sustainability rules
Everton face a potential points deduction if they become the first club to all foul of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules after making significant losses since 2017.
To ensure that clubs spend within their means and remain financially stable in the long-term, Premier League rules allow for a maximum of £105m in losses over a three-year period.
The Toffees have already recorded losses of £260m between 2017 and 2020, which would ordinarily be an automatic breach of the rules and put them in line for sanctions. But the impact of Covid-19 has extended the period to four years and clubs are allowed to combine the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons to calculate an average loss across both.
The Daily Mail has reported that Everton are expected to soon announce a loss in excess of £100m for the 2020/21 campaign. As such, the club is believed to be awaiting clarification over how much of their losses can be offset due to the pandemic – for example, matchday revenues for all clubs were wiped out last season as a result of nearly every game being played behind closed doors.
It is expected that the Premier League will formally charge and sanction any clubs in breach of the rules at the end of the season – that could be in the form of fines or a points deduction. No one has ever breached them before.
But the financial problems for Everton, who have spent heavily in the transfer market since Farhad Moshiri first became majority shareholder in 2016, aren’t limited to the pandemic.
Sanctions brought against Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov in light of his country’s invasion of Ukraine have seen the club end lucrative sponsorship deals with Usmanov’s various companies that could be worth an estimated £300m in lost revenue over 20 years.
If Everton find themselves in need of fast cash to balance the books and avoid financial punishment, it has already been rumoured that some of the more saleable assets in the squad could be sold off – including Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison and Jordan Pickford.
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