Former Everton captain Seamus Coleman has said Everton's players and fans were punished by decisions made higher up at the club, while Manchester City's ongoing case is "killing" the Premier League.
In November 2023, Everton received a 10-point deduction for a single breach of the Premier League's profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), the biggest sporting sanction in English top-flight history at the time. The penalty was reduced to six points on appeal, but the club then received a further two-point deduction, bringing the total to eight points.
Coleman on the impact of the deductions
Coleman, who made 435 appearances for Everton, including a club-record 374 in the Premier League, was asked on the Overlap Fan Debate, brought to you by Sky Bet, how he felt when the points deductions were imposed. The 38-year-old said the punishment was not related to the players on the pitch.
"It had nothing to do with us lads that are on the pitch, and you're so proud to play for Everton Football Club. You know how much it means to all the fans, and maybe because of decisions that have been made higher up, maybe without a thought, I don't know, before you know it, you've got a 10-point deduction," Coleman said.
He added: "We weren't in a great place as a team back then, so a 10-point deduction for us at that time, people might forget, nearly guaranteed relegation for how we were playing. Thankfully, we'd started that season quite well, so the 10-point deduction, I think, took us from, I don't know, 15th to second from bottom but I just felt that it happened so quickly."
Coleman noted that the appeal reduced the deduction to six points, suggesting the original penalty was not right. He said the second two-point deduction came in April, a month before the end of the season, and dropped the team down another couple of places.
Frustration with decision-makers
Coleman expressed frustration with the decision-makers responsible for the overspend, saying they could do it to the players and the fanbase. He described the situation as "their life, it is everything to them," and questioned how it could not be watched more carefully to avoid reaching a point where points are deducted for bad decisions.
"Thankfully we got ourselves out of it," he said.
Manchester City case 'killing' the league
Manchester City have since been found guilty of 114 charges relating to breaches of Premier League financial rules between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons. An independent commission found the club arranged "sham contracts" and "relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs," as part of a scheme to disguise secret funding of more than £830million.
Commenting on the impact of that case, Coleman said: "I think the biggest issue with it for me is, this is supposed to be the best league in the world, and whether City are guilty or not, it's just killing the league, it's killing the season, it's killing every team, because you're just waiting to see what'll happen."
He added that if City continue to win titles, the best league in the world having that massive question mark over it is strange. Coleman questioned how Everton and Nottingham Forest could be dealt with so quickly and efficiently, while the City case remains unresolved.
"Obviously, yeah, we were affected Champions League-wise and that, but I'm not going to be knocking on anyone's door chasing lost bonuses or that," Coleman said.
