Everton Should Call Out Leicester City’s Brush With FFP Rules

As soon as news broke of Everton being handed a 10-point deduction for breaches of Premier League Financial Fair Play rules reports emerged of a lawsuit.

Having taken a huge financial hit from relegation to the Championship last season, the Daily Mail reported Leeds United and Leicester City were seeking damages from the Merseyside club.

According to the paper they, in addition to Burnley, wanted around $126 million from Everton on the basis they lost a place in the division unfairly.

“The aggrieved trio are understood to have agreed to follow through on their previous threats to sue Everton, which they formulated over the summer after Sean Dyche’s side narrowly escaped relegation on the final day of the campaign by just two points,” the newspaper claimed.

Unsurprisingly Everton saw things a little differently.

“The club believes that the Commission has imposed a wholly disproportionate and unjust sporting sanction,” it said in a statement.

“The club has already communicated its intention to appeal the decision to the Premier League. The appeal process will now commence and the Club’s case will be heard by an Appeal Board appointed pursuant to the Premier League’s rules in due course.

“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 recognize 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.”

It all spells for an incredibly messy next couple of years as every interested party attempts to maximize the situation to their advantage.

Underpinning each of the different parties’ claims is a different narrative, both in the way the story is spun to the media and in how it’s communicated in the legal case. The three teams suing Everton make the claim broadly on the premise that their hands are clean.

Whilst there is certainly no FFP investigation into any of them currently, the suggestion that Leicester City has an unblemished record when it comes to investigations is simply not true.

‘Different interpretations of the rules’

Exactly ten years ago, Leicester City embarked on what would prove to be a glorious charge from the Championship back into the Premier League.

Under the stewardship of Nigel Pearson, the explosive form of ex-non-league striker Jamie Vardy, defensive steel provided by Wes Morgan and Kasper Schmichael’s goalkeeping prowess powered them into the top flight.

But there was a blot on this success, when it came time for the team to file its accounts it emerged the Foxes had made a loss of $26 million.

This was a problem because the governing body the Football League had recently introduced Financial Fair Play rules that handed out heavy fines for clubs that made losses greater than $10 million in 2013-14.

An investigation was launched by the Football League and dragged on for several years, the club, in a manner not dissimilar to Everton, strongly contested the suggestion it had broken the rules.

Of course, as this was all rumbling away behind closed doors on the field Leicester City was pulling off one of the most miraculous feats in Premier League history winning the title despite being 5,000-1 outsiders.

But any mention of the club’s pending FFP case was totally absent from all media coverage of the triumph it was all a celebration of an underdogs victory.

The contrast to the reaction to Manchester City’s recent title win couldn’t be more pronounced, perhaps it was because the parties with a grievance were Wigan Athletic and Derby County rather than Manchester United and Liverpool.

But that’s more than a little ironic given the consequences of overspending in the Championship are more intense, both Wigan and Derby have been on the brink of existence after years of attempting to spend their way out of the second tier.

Their fans might well argue that the cost of trying to compete nearly cost them a soccer club.

Leicester City’s defense of its 2013/14 overspend was not that it had made the loss, but that it had “interpreted” the rules differently to the league, although it had at other points questioned the “legality” of FFP.

The case was settled quietly in 2018 with Leicester paying a $3.9 million fine and the governing body publicly accepting the Foxes’ “interpretation” argument.

However there was little explanation of how and why this conclusion had been reached beyond the following statement released by both parties: “In reaching a settlement, the [English Football League] EFL acknowledges that the club did not make any deliberate attempt to infringe the rules or to deceive and that the dispute arose out of genuine differences of interpretation of the rules between the parties. All relevant matters were taken into account when determining the quantum of the settlement.

“The agreed settlement of £3,100,000 is in full and final settlement of all and any claims by the EFL against the club and its officers, in respect of the FFP Regulations for season 2013/14.

“No further details with regards to the settlement will be released.”

When discussions of FFP are raised there are few discussions of Leicester City and its glorious Premier League triumph.

But given the sparse detail in the EFL statement it would be understandable if fans of rival clubs expressed felt similarly to those who object to Everton’s survival.