Photo: Peter Byrne/PA
Goodison Park is always loud, except sometimes it's roaring and sometimes it's booing. When Everton kick off against Manchester United on Sunday, it's safe to say the mood will be fervently supportive. The annual putting aside of differences to stand behind the flag and fight relegation will come early this season: there's nothing like the feeling of a common enemy bringing people together.
The enemy here is legion. It's the shabby leadership of their own club, it's the Premier League that laid charges and pushed for a ten-point deduction, and it's the independent panel that found them guilty and imposed the sanction.
Related: Everton players and fans will be excited about the points penalty, claims Sean Dyche
It could also be the future new owners: Everton may be in trouble, but no one can look at 777 Partners, their track record and FIFA's sanctions over unpaid transfer fees and not worry about a fire breaking out. Even Genoa, which was considered a success story for 777 after promotion last season, is on the brink of bankruptcy. It's Everton against the world and in the short term it might not be such a bad thing to stimulate the spirits and firm the nerves.
There's a feeling that if you have to get ten points, maybe this isn't the worst season for that to happen. Sheffield United and Luton are clubs with clearly limited resources, while Burnley was unexpectedly poor. Once it became clear that Vincent Kompany's side would not produce the form at the senior level that allowed them to dominate the championship, the three promoted sides felt like a likely bottom three. For the lower mid-tables looking anxiously over their shoulders, Bournemouth's slow start under Andoni Iraola has provided an extra cushion.
Before the deduction, Everton were comfortably nine points clear: they have been pushed back into the pack rather than given a gap to even get back into the relegation battle. The only caveat is that all four of these battlers have had a front-loaded fixture list: there had been only two games between them before this weekend, while all but one of Everton's remaining games before the half-way point of the season are against teams in the league. top half.
The story continues
Under the circumstances, United almost represent the perfect opponents as old-fashioned glamor and representatives of the establishment. Nevertheless, they are really a cautionary tale in unregulated capitalism and the fallibility of incompetent non-local ownership. United may have won four of their last five league games, but they are not playing well and as such represent not only a potentially notable scalp, but a plausible one as well. The memory of Phil Neville clinching Cristiano Ronaldo to spark Everton into life in 2008-09 will haunt Sunday afternoon.
But there is also the fact that United were one of the leaders in the English Super League. What about the death of justice - no regulatory body should fail to punish an offense just because other offenses go largely unpunished - but equally Everton fans have a right to ask why spending a little too much money costs 10 points, while a conspiracy against the league itself only a shared fine of £22 million.
And that's where the broader ramifications become so fascinating. Leaving aside the Super League issue, if this is the penalty for a conviction for one breach of the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules, while there are mitigating factors of the pandemic, sanctions against a major sponsor and a player whose contract had to are terminated for non-football related reasons, while the club has apparently been relatively cooperative, what could be the sanction for, say, 115 breaches, some related to a lack of cooperation, in a pre-Covid world? In Everton's case, the Premier League asked for a penalty of six points plus one for every five million pounds breached: that logic could see other clubs take hundreds of points.
Then there is the matter of compensation for those who are relegated while Everton stayed up. In 2009, West Ham reached an out-of-court settlement with Sheffield United for £15 million (plus £5 million if the club was sold in the following five years, as was the case), after being fined for breaching the third party ownership rules. in reference to Carlos Tevez, who had scored the winner at Manchester United on the final day of the 2006-07 season to keep the Hammers afloat.
If the rate was £20 million then, it is safe to assume that the equivalent would be considerably higher now (although it may be more difficult to prove direct causation than in the Tévez case), especially as but no fewer than five clubs have been given the right to prosecute. claims. And again, however high that compensation may be, it would be dwarfed by the potential figures if a party had regularly qualified for Europe to be found guilty over an extended period of time.
Related: Everton's conclusion is a shock - City and Chelsea could be hit by the earthquake
From a wider perspective, that is perhaps the most striking aspect of the Everton penalty. It is now nine months since the 115 charges against Manchester City were announced, for alleged offenses dating back to 2009. Even before the revelations from Cyprus' confidential files, the Premier League was already investigating Chelsea's finances in 2012.
With the case against Everton concluded with such dire consequences, the lack of resolution in the case against City becomes even more glaring - and a tariff will now be set if they are found guilty. There are two fundamental issues at stake here: the Premier League can prosecute clubs of Everton's stature, but can they also prosecute the state- and oligarch-run clubs? And if they can do that, with City charged and Chelsea under investigation, 12 of the last 19 league titles are in doubt in some way.
Whatever the final outcome, unless there is an overtly rigorous and thorough process, the question will linger as to whether it is even possible to regulate the modern Premier League. Everton's anger may be rightly directed at those who have managed it so poorly, it may be directed at the apparent arbitrariness of the process, it may be partly self-pity, but it is also a cry against the fear that modern football has fallen . in the hands of forces outside the regulations.
