By AFP
Everton submitted their appeal on Friday against a 10-point deduction handed down by the Premier League for breaches of financial sustainability rules.
The Toffees have reacted furiously after being hit with the toughest sporting sanction in Premier League history for breaching loss-making limits in the 2021/22 season.
Clubs in the English top flight are allowed to lose a maximum £105 million ($130 million) over a three-year period after allowable deductions are removed.
An independent commission found that the Merseyside club had lost £124.5 million for the revelant period.
“Everton Football Club has today lodged with the chair of the Premier League’s judicial panel its appeal of the decision by a Premier League Commission to impose a 10-point deduction on the club,” Everton said in a statement
“An appeal board will now be appointed to hear the case.”
The sanction has plummeted Everton into the relegation zone and put their 70-year stay in the English top-flight at risk.
“We were stunned, I think football was stunned, by the outcome of the 10 points so who knows what comes next?” Everton boss Sean Dyche said ahead of Saturday’s trip to Nottingham Forest.
“The way it is sounding from the noise out there it is not just about us, there will be others looked at possibly over time. We will have to wait and see.”
As it stands, Dyche’s men are off the bottom of the table only on goal difference and five points adrift of safety.
Everton supporters staged a mass protest against the Premier League ahead of last weekend’s 3-0 home defeat to Manchester United.
There is scepticism at the severity of such a sanction at the same time that the Premier League is trying to resist the introduction of an independent regulator for football in England.
Manchester Mayor and Everton season-ticket holder Andy Burnham has also raised concerns over the process by which the 10-point penalty was reached.
Burnham criticised the lack of a Premier League sanctions policy before the charges were brought against the club and the attempt to introduce one in August this year, while the Everton case was being held, as “regulatory malpractice.”
