I’ll have a bitter please...It’s the Everton thread

The West Ham fine over Tevez and Mascherano was 5 million. It was near 20 years ago, and for a different offense, but the bulk of the issue was it was a breach of rules that resulted in someone else going down. This figure seems way out of line compared to that one, and I dont know there are any other situations comparable that are more recent to compare it against.

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The fine was £5M, but West Ham was also sued by Sheffield United and settled for an additional £20M. The size of the fine would be defined by a different set of rules (FFP), but the damages will have scaled significantly not least because PL money has scaled (2007 last place got about 28M, that number is now around 80M). Given that all of the teams facing relegation would be potential claimants, you can get to a fairly large number.

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That was two players, we are talking of an overspend of over 200m here aren’t we?

The precedent in the football league is for points deduction and it is what should happen here.

Fines are no deterrent to clubs in the PL.

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Especially to the likes of City and Newcastle.

Everton might feel a large one, but it probably won’t be more than a couple of million.

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If they have this takeover it’s just small chips isn’t it.

I suspect it is damn near impossible to close a takeover deal while it is uncertain whether or not a club is in the PL or not. What is Everton worth as a Championship side? I doubt they can get it done until there is clarity on their status for 23-24, part of which they can see resolved on the field. I don’t know when the PL has to lock in composition for the next season.

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And then they’ll chalk up it to “exceptional covid costs” to try and keep it out of the FFP calculations.

You’re right though, most fines are trivial amounts to clubs. Look at the Super League fines, came out to about £3.5m each for the six riches clubs in the league. We’d spend that on a punt on some teenager without being too worried by it.

The only thing that hurts is point deductions. But the PL are so weak on these things they’ll probably hang on dishing out any kind of punishment to Everton until after next season is underway. That way they won’t have to even consider reinstating a relegated team and sending Everton down instead.

Then it’s up to the relegated clubs to try and raise a law suit that will invariably get nowhere. How could it be proved that the spending ensured their survival and that they wouldn’t have stayed up without it? They could just say they’d have kept the players they sold instead.

The speed at which the PL move on things seems glacial at times. The investigation into City and Everton have dragged on and on. The Ivan Toney charges seem to have taken an age to be decided on. Even Klopp shouting at the fourth official took them the best part of three weeks to come to a decision on when we all saw it on TV and the refs report would be submitted the next day.

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Leicester and Chelsea to win.
We batter Southampton.
Major fume in Newcastle.

Good enough for the next generation of sportswashing cheats on the block.

Fucking dumb geordies will be gutted

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I doubt it will go nowhere, it just won’t get anyone reinstated. West Ham didn’t settle with the Blades because they felt badly, they knew they were going to lose.

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Rivalry aside, this doesn’t sound great.

The article is somewhat confusing, referring to a 25% stake, but not equity. The preferred share mechanism sounds something like mezzanine debt, which means MSP will be paid out from cash flow. That would really only be of interest to equity holders in two situations: where they expect to strike it big and don’t want to give up real equity, and when they need cash badly, cannot convince investors to come in as equity, and can’t get more debt without violating bank covenants. Not hard to guess which one is in operation here.

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But what is the value prop to the new investors? Are they positioned to siphon off revenue before its been used to pay other bills? Essentially, reducing operating revenue?

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That would depend on the covenants, but very likely. The capital accrues interest, and has scheduled dividends - dividends that can be suspended if need be to stay onside with secured debt covenants, but the interest accrues regardless. Normally, the covenants will require payment to schedule in almost every circumstance except where it would be problematic for debt covenants. In most cases, the preferred share holders can choose to convert their preferred shares to common equity should the debt not be paid according to schedule - normally, at rates that substantially dilute the original equity holders. So not true debt, but accrues interest and either gets access to cash flow or puts the knife into the common equity holders.

The structure is one that you see quite a bit of in venture capital deals, where the investors are quite willing to push out founders and early stage investors if the business plan doesn’t work out.

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So, basically they’ve pulled their trousers down, bent over and held up a sign saying “insert here” then?

What this kids sex education, :grinning::grinning:

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Where are you based please?

Just so I can be sure my kids don’t end up in school there

:wink:

It suggests a real dangerous situation, where they don’t have the capital to finish the stadium, but have ~ £140M in debt stuck in the project. It appears from their financials that it is a floating rate, so it is likely considerably more expensive than it was when they took it, simply because of interest rates. The preferred shares offer suggests no further debt was going to be possible.

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And this lot have got priority so I assume they only pull out if they go down.

The deal hasn’t happened yet. I suspect it is contingent on Everton surviving next week. It may even be contingent on the PL placing them in the 23/24 structure.

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I know but it sounds risky as fuck for them and it’s go down or get them.

It appears to be a bridge financing deal, capital to get the stadium finished or perhaps to another milestone in a previously negotiated debt financing. I think this is going to be a story that takes a couple of years to unfold, and Everton fans are not going to like it either way.

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