Everton sent warning over possible further points deduction - but there's a twist to worry Nottingham Forest

Everton are in serious danger of seeing more points deducted, according to a finance expert. The Toffees have already been through a point deduction this season, with an initial 10 points deducted for Financial Fair Play breaches, while four points were given back on appeal.

But that may not be the end of it for the Toffees, with clubs required to remain within loss limits over every rolling three-year period. Premier League clubs submitted their latest accounts at the back-end of last year, and those accounts will become public some time in March, giving everyone a glimpse at which clubs are in danger of being in breach of Financial Fair Play rules - otherwise known as profit and sustainability rules (PSR).

Everton are said to be in serious danger of breaching the rules again, and finance expert Stefan Borson expects another points deduction should predictions prove correct. “This thing about double jeopardy is wrong" he told TalkSport. "This thing is about natural justice in taking a three-year period in which you’ve been punished for two already and the second independent commission will have no issue understanding what is fair in that context and understanding that they shouldn’t be punished twice for the same period.

“That said, it will clearly see another breach as being a serious matter because of the things you look at in the assessment of the PSR is the trend and clearly the trend has gone against them in breaching because if the trend had continued to improve, they wouldn’t have been in breach.

“Everton have had pretty big losses for 2022/23 – they haven’t released their accounts yet but they’re due to be released publicly by the end of March – but we know they were signed off in November or December and like many clubs they’ve held onto them. We don’t know what the number for Everton is, but we know that the loss for 22/23 was very big and therefore they will still suffer a serious punishment.

“I think you can work on the basis that the starting point will be another six and then you’ll discount for the two years where they’ve already had a penalty and it gets you back to two or maybe three , or maybe one (points deducted). I still think they’ll get an additional points deduction, it’s just that it’ll be assessed in the overall context, it’s just that most of their arguments are unlikely to succeed because they’ve already been run and so I think it’s a relatively straight-forward decision for the independent commission on Everton."

The one saving grace for Everton could be that Nottingham Forest are also in danger of being docked points, with the two clubs only separated by one point as things stand, with the relegation zone just four points below Forest and five below the Toffees.

“It’s a similar sort of equation for Nottingham Forest," Borson added. "I’d be slightly concerned if I was a Forest fan because of the aggravating factors because it looks like they spent recklessly and that’s something that will put them further up the scale of punishment.

“Putting them further down the scale, however, is that they only breached one year of Premier League financial fair play and so when a team has been promoted you have an allowance from the EFL for two of the years and a Premier League allowance for one of the years so in essence £61million was the target and in the two years in the EFL they were there or thereabouts, so they may well get away with the first two years of the period – partly because they didn’t breach by very much and partly because the Premier League isn’t going to know how to deal with it because it’s not in their remit.

“I would think that Forest are probably looking at something like two to three points, plus the potential of some aggravating factor around the recklessness of the spending, minus the potential of what the appeal commission describe as the golden mitigation which Sheffield Wednesday had when they sold their stadium which Nottingham Forest are hinting will be Brennan Johnson.

“I think it’s very unlikely that the paperwork surrounding Johnson matches the tone of their appeal, so I suspect they will not get mitigation for Johnson and therefore it will be how big an aggravating factor is the recklessness and how do they deal with this two-year stub period when they were in the EFL.”