Everton and Nottingham Forest cases grind on with season outcome in balance

Nottingham Forest and the Blues are currently awaiting a decision regarding their pending cases under the Profit and Sustainability regulations. Naturally, Everton has already gone through this arduous process once this season, which culminated in the shocking decision to dock the club an unprecedented ten points in November. That was the largest sporting penalty ever imposed on a club in the English top flight, greater even than the deduction for going into administration. And, although, as we all know, the Toffees were able to claw back four of those points on appeal (and arguably it should have been more), the Premier League had already announced that Everton was being investigated again, this time for additional alleged incidents.

 

violations of surplus losses during a three-year fiscal cycle.

The two clubs are anxiously awaiting word from the committee looking into the cases on their guilt or innocence and the penalties that would follow.

If any of the Blues are found guilty, points will undoubtedly be taken away, considering that they were punished ten last year for a single infraction involving about £19 million.

Also, this will likely have a huge impact on the fight to stay in the Premier League, since the Toffees and Forest are now ranked sixteenth and seventeenth, respectively.

It’s likely that both clubs will still be in the running for relegation by the start of April, even though one or the other may have distanced themselves by then.

The defense that Forest has put up for perhaps breaking the spending guidelines is another intriguing part of this scenario.

Although this technically took them over the three-year term, the Midlands club contended that they held onto a key player, Brennan Johnson, longer than they might have in order to maximize his sell-on value.

On the other hand, Everton was forced to sell one of their top players, Richarlison, to Spurs extremely fast (and at a reduced cost) in order to meet the deadline for the fiscal quarter that resulted in November’s deduction.

And one of the two explanations offered by the review board for the Blues appeal’s at least partial acceptance a few weeks ago was that, contrary to what had been implied in November’s original

We’ll just have to wait and watch what precisely transpires when the commission ultimately renders its decision since this convoluted problem just keeps getting worse.

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