Premier League PSR – This shambles continues as new appeal goes in

The Premier League saga with PSR restrictions and punishments lurches from one shambles to another.

The whole system and indeed entire ideology underpinning it, surely now in real danger of bringing the game into disrepute.

I wrote an article about this on Friday, after Leicester City became the third club to be charged with breaking Premier League PSR restrictions in the three season period that includes the 2022/23 season.

The Premier League seemingly having taken the decision belatedly to try and punish clubs for breaking rules, after letting clubs do pretty much whatever they wanted to do for years.

Manchester City still not having had their 115 charges heard by a Premier League commission, yet seemingly a determination to ensure Everton, Leicester and Forest all receive punishments before this season ends.

This crackdown on alleged financial irresponsibility, played out to a backdrop of the Premier League rules allowing Man U to run up debts of £1billion+, a debt made up of loans, overdraft and instalments still owed on players signed. Whilst in the space of just a couple of years, the new owners at Chelsea have already committed club spending of £1billion on signing new players. Many of these new Chelsea signings given ridiculously long (and lucrative) contracts, the length of contracts to help try ensure that the club didn’t break the PSR restrictions.

This now appears to be the latest news and position with Premier League and PSR punishments

For the three seasons up to and including the 2021/22 season:

Everton have been found guilt of breaking PSR restrictions and punished with a six points deduction, those half dozen points having been taken off their 2023/24 season total.

For the three seasons up to and including the 2022/23 season:

Nottingham Forest have been found guilt of breaking PSR restrictions and punished with a four points deduction, those four points having been taken off their 2023/24 season total.

Everton have been charged with breaking PSR restrictions and are awaiting the verdict of the PL commission, if punished with a points deduction, those points will also be taken off their 2023/24 season total.

Leicester City have been charged with breaking PSR restrictions and are also awaiting the verdict of the PL commission. How exactly a punishment would be applied to them, remains to be seen, if found guilty. The Premier League reportedly keen on rushing through their case and punishment (if found guilty…), so potentially a points deduction that could / would prevent them getting automatic promotion. However, Leicester said to be adamant that they are going to fight their corner, not happy to go along with any fast track points punishment.

Now on Monday, The Athletic have reported that Nottingham Forest have decided to appeal against their four point deduction for breaching the Premier League PSR restrictions.

This is how the Premier League table currently stands, with Everton’s six point deduction for the three year period up to and including the 2021/22 season but obviously not any potential (very likely!) second punishment and points deduction for the three years up to and including the 2022/23 season. Whilst this table does also include the four points Forest have had deducted and which they are now appealing against…

The Athletic report that Forest’s legal team, led by Nick De Marco, believe that the four points punishment is excessive and will put forward a new case outlining their grievances with the initial judgement.