Quote Originally Posted by legs77 View Post
You said no promotion and relegation that is incorrect but yes they did want guaranteed CL money each season but I guess the main ones wanted to make sure the state clubs were sorted out as nobody can be daft enough to think it would be ok or work.

You could argue it is a closed shop anyway amongst top 6 probably 7 now Newcastle are state owned.

Everton punishment is fair as they haven’t denied anything to my knowledge but the other two have denied it or refusing to cooperate which is same thing really.

Derby Luton Wigan all had points docked in last few years and others too and they had no comeback.

Where Everton have a point is two others have committed worse offences and nothing has been done (I understand they have more charges but still 115 charges and yet everyone is up Peps a*se they are cheating it is as simple as that)
I might have got the promotion/relegation slightly wrong. I think the idea was that the Snakes get to be permanent members, plus a small number of places for those who actually get there on sporting merit... if I remember rightly, they're not promoted, but are effectively guests and only get to continue if they do well enough in the domestic league. Granted, they'd get money for being involved, but nowhere near enough to fund the squad they'd need to be competitive across both competitions - just like we see with Europa League qualifiers.

And yes, we could argue that it's already a closed shop. But Leicester won the league. Brighton qualified for Europe. It's not quite a closed shop, and all the anger at the time showed that a Super League would be worse, and was something pretty much no-one wanted.

Other clubs have had points deductions, but for more serious offences like going into administration and failing to play players, and under standard rules set out by their respective leagues. The PL is just making stuff up as they go along. I don't really mind delays in Manchester City and Chelsea (and probably others) getting their hearings, because their cases are much more complicated than disagreements over accounting methodology, which is what this amounts to. Some punishment is fair, but this is completely disproportionate