Pundit Simon Jordan has weighed in on the situation surrounding Manchester City’s financial charges from the Premier League following Everton’s recent points deduction.
Earlier today, Everton received an immediate 10-point deduction after being found to have breached the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules.
This has since led to the topic of City’s financial situation concerning the 115 charges the Premier League put upon them back in February coming up once again.
Jordan assesses City charges after Everton deduction
Speaking on talkSPORT shortly after the announcement of Everton’s points deduction, Jordan had this to say on the matter and how it links to City’s situation.
He said: “I was told about six weeks ago that their expectation was they were going to get nine points but I didn’t think they would get that. That’s why I changed my argument from a financial situation to a points based one.
“I thought they would get three to six and that may well be the outcome after the appeal. But the fact of the matter is that they are a product of timing alongside the fact that I think they have been slightly artistic in their accountancy.
“The Premier League’s attitude now is that they have an independent regulator coming in and they want to be able to show they are able to clean house. Cleaning house means that they need to be able to enforce things like financial fair play and the disciplines around it.
“I wonder if this had been two or three years ago if Everton would have got the same situation but 10 points is a significant penalty and they will probably argue it down. They are going to get a points penalty, they are not going to be argue this away, and the whole fabric of this is much different to Man City’s.
“I thought there might be an element of the Premier League bottling it because the next cab off the rank is going to be Man City, so once you have set a precedent of points you have that in your armoury and you are going to use it again. Man City are going to be watching this with interest but the situation with Everton is much more binary, Man City is a much more convoluted set of cases.”
Earlier this week, after confirming a second successive year of record-breaking revenues and profits in their Annual Report for the 2022/23 season, the club said in their latest financial report that “there are a number of risks and uncertainties which could have a material impact on the Club’s performance,” referring to the 115 charges.
Now that Everton have been punished with a 10-point deduction, it’s understandable why the focus has now shifted to City’s situation once again.
However, with the club saying after the charges were made public that they welcome “the review of this matter by an independent Commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position,” it has been clear from the start that they are confident they should not be charged.
Moving forward, if the Premier League ends up turning their spotlight towards City in terms of dishing out a potential points deduction following on from Everton’s sanction, they will have to make sure their comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence is enough to put the whole matter to bed.
