£100 million quid now !
Latest Leicester City news from LeicestershireLive as we give our views on a potential claim against Everton over breaking the Premier League's financial rules
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All eyes are on Leicester City to see if the Foxes will launch a compensation claim against Everton.
City, who finished one place behind Everton in the Premier League table last season as they were relegated to the Championship, could now claim compensation for lost earnings. Here, we take a look at the situation and our writers consider what might happen.
Given the small moments football can rest on, it feels like they have a case. The difference between staying up and going down can be one kick of a ball.
There’s no doubt that City were rubbish last season, with players, managers, and even the hierarchy under-performing. But had James Maddison’s penalty against Everton in May been converted, they would be breathing a sigh of relief that they were learning their lessons as a Premier League club, knowing that they had at least one more year of a guaranteed £100m heading their way.
While Everton’s breach of the regulations covers the three years ending with the 2021-22 season, the year before City were relegated, it has to be considered that an overspend of £19.5m will have a knock-on effect into further campaigns. It costs around £5m a year to pay a player £100k a week. Going beyond the limit by £19.5m may have allowed Everton to offer out contracts that kept players at Goodison Park into last season. How many kicks of a ball does that impact? Far more than the one penalty miss that stopped City from staying up.
There will also be the argument that the points deduction should affect the season directly after the breach of regulations, and not two seasons further on. Everton should still survive this season, even in spite of the 10 points they’ve been docked.
The whole matter is a mess and not what football should be about. But it is what it has become, and there is a clear argument that those rule breaches affected the competition enough that City were relegated instead of Everton. This could be a dispute that rumbles on for some time.
Amie Wilson
I’ve seen a few different views on the prospect of City making a claim against Everton since their points deduction was confirmed just under a week ago. Arguments claim that City got what they deserved, something that I partly agree with.
Yes, the performances of the team weren’t good enough to stay up in the end, but in a relegation fight you are always relying on three teams being worse than you. That’s where City have a claim against Everton.
A summer refresh has brought new life to the club with Enzo Maresca coming in. It may not have felt it at the time, but in the long-term, relegation may have been the best thing for the club, but it’s the financial implications that City can claim against Everton.
The moment that ultimately sealed City’s fate in the final day came from Abdoulaye Doucoure, who Everton signed for £20m from Watford in 2020, one of the seasons they have been charged for breaking Financial Fair Play rules in. It has been confirmed that the club went over the limit by just under £20m.
City could, therefore, argue that players bought by Everton in that time period, against the rules, had a big impact in their relegation from the Premier League. City may have finished above the Toffees had they not spent on fees and wages on certain players.
One of the contributing factors was City’s lack of transfer activity in the summer. In order to not break the rules, City signed just one outfield player in Wout Faes in the summer of 2022, as a £15m replacement for Wesley Fofana who was sold to Chelsea for £75m.
City were unable to sign a replacement for the outgoing Kasper Schmeichel. I’ve already seen arguments claiming that City would not have been relegated if Mads Hermansen, who signed this summer, was playing in goal last season ahead of Danny Ward and Daniel Iversen as he is doing now.
There’s so many factors that can be looked at, but the fact that City made sure not to break the rules, when they could have easily thrown caution to the wind in a bid to strengthen, will only help their case as they look to claim as much of the losses of relegation back from Everton as possible.
James Pallatt
City will surely launch a case against Everton, first of all. Nothing has been confirmed by the club in the wake of the Toffees being found guilty of breaking the Premier League’s financial rules, but it surely will be.
And when that happens, it will be an entirely straightforward case, right? It looks cut and dried on the surface. Everton broke the rules and relegated City were collateral damage. That’s the bottom line. Case closed. All City have to do is give Everton their bank details so they can transfer £100m or so as compensation.
The thing is, there’s an added complexity to City’s case for compensation, for me, beyond the obvious, huge loss of revenue from exiting the Premier League, which has so far been missing from the narrative. What about Leicester having to sell arguably their best two players during the summer?
Yes, James Maddison only had one year left on his contract at the King Power Stadium and City may well have had to make a decision on selling him during the summer anyway, but might they have been in a stronger bargaining position when Tottenham came calling if they were still in the Premier League? The short answer is yes. Which means they could have banked more than the £40m Spurs paid for him.
And then there’s Harvey Barnes. City would not have had to sell him at all. He was on a contract until 2025. But relegation changed that. As their best young player, it follows that he was one of their most saleable assets at a time when they had to sell. And so he was sold to Newcastle for around £40m. If City were still in the Premier League it’s highly likely Barnes would still be at the club. And how much might he have been worth in the future? Very likely, more than £40m. And this - as well as Maddison’s sale - should come into the equation in any compensation claim by City, which could take it well over £100m.
