After the ten-point deduction they were initially handed, Everton were generally accepting with the eventual six points they managed to get it reduced to.
Especially given the fact that it really catapulted them up the table, offering some much-needed daylight between themselves and the bottom three.
However, Nottingham Forest’s recent four-point deduction has expunged any happiness, instead provoking fury at the lack of consistency in the Premier League’s rulings.
Andy Burnham, as one of the Toffees’ most vocal defenders throughout this process, was yet again quick to lambast the decision.
What Andy Burnham said about Everton’s deduction
Speaking to Mark Chapman on The Sports Agents podcast, the Mayor of Greater Manchester actively sought out the pundit in order to offer his verdict on Everton.
As someone who has been silenced so often throughout this deduction process, it was clear to see why he was so desperate to get his words into the mainstream media.
He would offer a passionate argument against the Premier League: ‘I feel so frustrated about it. They’ve ruined this season. The second to last season at Goodison Park, they have ruined it. The fact that this grand old ground is just shrouded constantly in protest and frustration and anger… it isn’t right to me.
‘But actually, not just to us, look at the whole bottom half of the table, nobody knows where they are. Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody knows when the next deduction will be. Why have we got another charge, haven’t we already been done for the same period?
‘And then you look at the process that they’ve got Forest and ourselves in now, have they used the formula that they sent to the original commission that looked at Everton to the commission looking at Forest? I don’t know the answer to that question.
‘Will they use the same formula with Everton? Will Everton and Forest be the only clubs ever to be charged under this opaque… I wouldn’t even call it a regime because they’ve been making it up as they have gone along.
‘And this is the point. I think they took this action against Everton and targeted us in the way that they have done to try and prove they could regulate, to push back the idea of a government regulator. I think what they’ve done is the precise opposite. They’ve proven they can’t regulate, fairly, openly and transparently.’
A government regulator for the Premier League is around the corner
Regardless of what Burnham sees as desperate last-gasp attempts to ward off an independent regulator, it seems like the Premier League has failed anyway whilst alienating two of their oldest and most historically significant clubs.
After all, it was reported earlier this week, just a day after Forest’s deduction, that the government would be passing legislation for the bill that would introduce it anyway.
Undeterred by this veiled power grab at the expense of two of their clubs, this political alteration is set to have huge ramifications on the English game, handing an independent organisation the ability to oversee clubs in England’s top five men’s tiers.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has called it a ‘historic moment for football fans’, and Evertonians will delight in seeing Richard Masters squirm should it continue its progression.