The Premier League gives the impression of a game rigged with the PSR | first division

Everton FC, the great team ever, came close on Monday to the first relegation since 1951. Quite a bit. The whole issue may not be resolved until after the season or it could spill over into next season. But if we leave all that aside, the picture is very clear. If you squint. From a certain angle.

The Premier League's profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) are, rightly or wrong, becoming something of a laughing stock. Rules that until now had never led any club to receive a sporting sanction have meant the loss of two points this season. Indeed, Everton have been punished twice, although their first punishment was reduced on appeal and their second, a two-point deduction for £16m overspending, could yet be reduced too. Nottingham Forest They are also appealing their own four-point penalty.

For any fan of either club, or of any other team threatened with relegation, or of any team likely to play one of these teams, or fans of those clubs hoping to be promoted from the Championship (including the league leaders , Leicester, themselves the subject of PSR charges), this is not an ideal situation. What's the point of biting your nails to death if the result on the field can be questioned by the ruling of an independent commission? And why do some clubs face immediate sanctions while others can wait a season (Leicester will not be punished until next season), and some can seemingly postpone the day of reckoning indefinitely through enthusiastic engagement with the legal profession?

It is a rum enigma that does not reflect well on “the most watched competition in the world.” He has embittered his fans without whom, let us not forget, the game is nothing. It has sparked unfounded accusations of corruption and talk of asterisks hanging over the record books. Furthermore, it has deepened divisions between the clubs that make up the league and between the clubs and the league itself. This new focus on compliance with spending rules has cast a shadow over the competition.

And yet, it was the clubs who voted in favor. Last summer they were the ones who agreed to treat the alleged PSR violations with more urgency. A completely new appendix was added to the first division manual to detail the very specific times and dates by which any process must be undertaken and completed, with all complaints to be resolved and punishments administered within the current season. This was a move that said the Premier League was taking financial irregularities seriously, and at the same time the government was threatening to introduce an independent regulator for the game. Phew.

But just as the Premier League likes to talk about the “unintended consequences” of legal regulation, there have been unintended consequences to taking a harder line on cost controls. One of them, the absence of an agreed tariff of sanctions, helped lead to a result in which Everton were docked a hair-raising 10 points in the first instance, but the punishment was later reduced to six on appeal. This created an impression of chaos and Andy Burnham, the Everton-supporting mayor of Greater Manchester, went so far as to claim that the Premier League had committed an “abuse of process” by recommending punishment to the independent commission (something the Premier League insists that he was expected to do so because there was no tariff).

Recently there has also been concern about the deadlines so meticulously set out in the appendix. A second set of charges brought against Everton, for breaches over a partially different time period, only became known after the first set of charges were resolved. That meant the result wasn't released until this week, just over a month before the end of the season. The appendix states that any appeal must be concluded “no later than and, if possible, before May 24,” leaving the possibility that the verdict may not come until a few days after the season ends. Written reasons explaining the latest sanction also revealed a third, “bifurcated” process, which will address a further £6.5m in expenses and will almost certainly not be known until the next term.

Would these problems have been avoided if the Premier League and its clubs had taken more time to develop a stricter enforcement regime? Maybe not, but it's hard to resist the feeling of things falling apart after being hastily fixed. It's a situation made darkly comical by the fact that Premier League clubs have since decided they want to create a whole new system of PSR rules anyway. This change of heart has, coincidentally, left the Premier League unable to meet the UK government's request to make an enhanced financial redistribution offer to the EFL.

There is one last unintended consequence, which should have been foreseen. For a competition that inspires so much joy among so many people, the Premier League should be more careful about creating cynicism among those who follow it. As with the video assistant referee system, which itself was the subject of a botched implementation that has led to fans sitting for minutes waiting for a crucial goal to be disallowed for an impenetrable infringement, PSR is now an abbreviation known for many and commonly used as a swear word. It has become synonymous with a game that people consider rigged.

This is not a good place to be and the identity of those responsible is clear. It is the clubs who voted for these rules but, more importantly, it is the clubs who have been violating them and who needed their creation in the first place due to a fundamental inability or unwillingness to run football teams sustainably. Combined loss estimates among the 17 clubs that have made financial information available for the 2022-23 season (some have not) exceed £600m. That is the crux of the problem. These huge and continuous losses determine much of the decision making that takes place in football. They are still likely to cause some unintended consequences.

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