Everton’s problems are only just beginning

Pity the poor Everton fans. Just as their once mighty club, now a perennial relegation battler, seemed to have a climbed a few ladders in recent weeks to low mid-table, they land on a snake. Yesterday the Premier League handed them a ten point penalty for financial irregularities, plunging them back down into the danger zone of relegation.

Everton admitted the offences and pleaded mitigation: unexpectedly high interest payments on their new stadium project, the loss of a Russian sponsor due to UK government sanctions in the wake of the war in Ukraine and losses (estimated at £10 million) incurred as a result of criminal charges brought against a ‘player X’. They also stressed that they had cooperated fully with the investigation (unlike some others). But to no avail.

‘Excessive and unfair’ was the snap judgement to this from much of the football community (including arch rival Liverpool’s former player Jamie Carragher).