Why Chelsea and Man City could escape Everton-esque FFP punishment

Stuart Telford

• 23 Nov 2023 16:16 GMT
• 3 min read

Chelsea and Manchester City could escape the points penalty handed out to Everton for FFP breaches, according to David Ornstein.

Everton were recently handed a 10-point deduction by the Premier League after admitting that their net spending over a three-year period until 2022 was £19.5 million higher than the existing £105m limit.

The Merseyside club appealed for leniency against the backdrop of being unable to shift players during the depressed market that was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that didn't stop the Premier League plunging them into the relegation zone.

Now, significant column inches have been dedicated to what might happen to Chelsea and Man City. The Blues stand accused of third-party payments during the Roman Abramovich era, while City face 115 charges following an already four-year investigation.

But Ornstein doesn't think it's a given than City, let alone Chelsea, are at risk of being relegated, despite what seem a logical conclusion of their 115 breaches compared to Everton's one.

What did Ornstein say?

"Everyone is saying that Manchester City must be relegated if found guilty, but we don't know because they are not charged with the same things," he told the Stick to Football Podcast.

"Playing devil's advocate, Everton admitted their wrongdoing, it's there in the report and so they complied to say let's get this over and done with.

"Manchester City deny any wrongdoing, strenuously, and they claim to have irrefutable evidence… they are waiting for the Premier League to bring the case; we don't know where is the independent panel?

Some of City's charges could be 'time-barred' according to Ornstein, and the paperwork involved mean there will be no speedy conclusion for the English and European champions.

"This is much more complicated and if you think that Everton's case of one charge ran into tens of thousands of pages of documentation, what do you think about Manchester City's with 115 charges?" he said.