Has a Premier League Club Ever Had Points Deducted Before?

With 115 alleged Financial Fair Play breaches hanging over them, Manchester City continue to operate free of punishment – for reasons known only to the Premier League and UEFA.

As for Everton, well, their scoresheet in the 2023/24 season looks rather more punitive: one FFP charge, one set of sanctions.

The Toffees have been deducted ten points by the Premier League over the breach – the most exacting punishment ever doled out by the EPL. It leaves Everton in the relegation zone and battling for their top-flight future.

4 – The only team to avoid relegation in a Premier League season when having four or fewer points after 12 games was Everton in 1994-95. Deduced. pic.twitter.com/9KPayJSN37

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 17, 2023

The seriousness of their ‘crime’ cannot be underplayed: this is only the fourth time that the Premier League has issued a points deduction in more than three decades of action.

Some will point to the hypocrisy of a competition that allows Manchester City to spend blank cheques on new talent seemingly at will, although perhaps their day in the FFP sun will yet come….

What Were Everton Charged With?

Premier League bosses instructed an independent commission to look into the financial dealings of Everton back in March 2023.

The club themselves have admitted to breaking the EPL’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), which dictate that a club can post losses of up to £105 million over a three-year period – the commission found that the Toffees had lost £124.5 million between 2019 and 2022.

Everton have lodged an appeal, claiming that ‘the harshness and severity of the sanction imposed by the commission are neither a fair nor a reasonable reflection of the evidence submitted.’

There’s only been three prior instances in which a Premier League club has been deducted points, and none were for breaches of the relatively new PSR rules. Treated as something of a test case, it will be interesting to see how other clubs are punished (or otherwise) with Everton now setting the precedent.

Previous Premier League Deductions

As mentioned above, there have been three previous points deductions handed out to clubs in the Premier League. Based on previous punishments, do Evertonians have any hope of a successful appleal?

Tottenham (1994/95) – 12 Points, Revoked on Appeal

The first club in Premier League history to be deducted points was….Tottenham Hotspur.

In those early years of the EPL’s rebrand from Division One, there was a form of FFP in place already – albeit not one as stringent or as complex as the system that governs the division today.

The actual breaches dated back to the 1980s, with the club ultimately pleading guilty to some 40 charges of financial misconduct and breaking transfer rules. They were deducted 12 points, fined £600,000 and kicked out of the FA Cup of 1994/95.

The Apprentice host, and former Tottenham chairman, Alan Sugar appealed the decision, and after hearing him out the Premier League halved the points deduction to six, more than doubled the fine to £1.2 million and still banished Spurs from the FA Cup.

Sugar appealed again, with the case this time passing to an arbitration tribunal. The panel agreed that Tottenham had been harshly treated for failings that came under previous owners, and so the points deduction was revoked and the club was reinstated into the FA Cup….just weeks before the third round of games was played.

Middlesbrough (1996/97) – 3 Points

The second club in Premier League history to be deducted points was Middlesbrough; although their breach had nothing to do with financial peculiarities.

The Boro were scheduled to face Blackburn Rovers in a game in December 1996, but the club was struck by a sickness bug that decimated their playing squad – leaving them with just 12 fit players – and coaching staff.

Bryan Robson, the then Middlesbrough manager, called off the game, but the Football Association adjudged that the decision came too late – so the North East outfit was deducted three points for failing to fulfil a fixture.

Ironically, the more likely punishment today would be that Blackburn would simply be handed the three points; if that had been the case in 1997, Boro would not have been relegated by two points with their expensive band of exciting signings – Juninho, Fabrizio Ravanelli and Emerson – in tow.

Portsmouth (2009/10) – 9 Points

There was an air of inevitability about Portsmouth’s points deduction during the 2009/10 season – they simply could not remedy their disastrous financial position.

They could not afford to pay their players wages and owed a whole bunch of debtors money, so a winding-up order was issued if they refused to enter administration.

They did so, reluctantly, in February 2010, meaning that an immediate nine-point deduction was handed to them. It made no difference, in the sense that they would have been relegated anyway without the sanction, but it did start the slippery slope that saw the FA Cup finalists fall all the way down to League Two.