Unfortunately I read the whole thing because Im weirdly into that stuff. So to sum up what the commission found:
1. The league would not let Everton capitalize the stadium costs of over 50 million because the project was not deemed "probable" yet, while letting others do that as their were considered "probable". Until planning approval was confirmed, Everton were required to include the costs in their P&S.
2. The league suspended Sigurdsson, for whom charges were eventually dropped, not allowing Everton to either use him to compete, or sell him.
3. The UK Government banned USM from any sponsorship, obviously including Everton
4. The league then rejected all of Everton's exclusions for 20/21 such as 17.4 million going to the stadium financing, 5.8 million to youth development, 10 million for Sigurdsson, and 61 million for covid related player trading losses.
5. In the end the commission basically said Everton should have sued Sigurdsson, and because Moshiri provided interest free loans, rather than at the normal interest rate we are over the P&S.
6. "The Premier League has made it clear that it makes no allegation of dishonesty. We consider, therefore, that Everton did not consciously intend to circumvent the Rules" and "Everton may have taken unwise risks, but it did so in the mistaken belief that it would achieve PSR compliance: it is not a case of a deliberate breach." and about us losing a stadium sponsorship from USM, "First, the prospects of an agreement having been concluded are uncertain. We were not shown any contemporaneous documents to show that receipt of the monies was probable" which of course is one of the more ignorant things Ive seen someone say.
Making the punishment look way beyond what it should be, and not a good look for the league, especially the stadium financing issue.
That said it also appears that Moshiri and the board did:
1. Moshiri provided interest free loans to the stadium group PURELY for the sake of manipulating lenders, by making it look like a more attractive investment. So he kept one set of books for the league, and another for potential lenders. If he hadnt of done this, regardless of the leagues bad rules(in my opinion) on the matter they could have excluded the interest and wouldnt have been a breach.
2. They were told by the league in 2021 that they wouldn't except the exclusions, and the 2022 books would be reviewed to determine if they went over the threshold. They ignored this and carried on as if the league was wrong on the subject.
3. They said they were within P&S rules, and then amended their response to the commission to remove mitigations such as the financing etc, basically admitting fault and killing the effects of any appeal.
4. Kenwright handled the Keane sale, AKA, did nothing and this alone would probably have saved any breach.
Basically the league screwed the club with making us put the stadium costs in our P&S, we signed a special agreement that then handcuffed us for the future, then the accountant in Moshiri forgot how to do accounting and literally could have just avoided the issue by moving the numbers to the right boxes, or Kenwright could have sold Keane. In short we legitimately spent less than 105m on player costs and abided by the spirit of the rules, but we accounted for the stadium costs wrong in an attempt to manipulate lenders, and then tried to obfuscate.
, it's ridiculous.
