Former England defender Gary Neville lashed out at the “lawless” Premier League in his podcast following Everton’s 10-point deduction last week, which stunned English soccer.
Everton became the first Premier League club to be punished with points for failing to follow profitability and sustainability standards (PSR) when the league docked the Merseyside club the points for the 2020-21 season.
“Everton’s trust and faith (in the Premier League) has gone completely,” television pundit Neville said on his podcast “Stick to Football”.
“The greed and selfishness is out of control — it’s lawless. The Premier League is a defunct organization because they’ve got 20 clubs all voting with self-interest. This has been coming for many years.”
The Premier League was not immediately available to comment.
Everton dropped from 14th in the table to the relegation zone with four points, one more than bottom side Burnley on goal differential.
The reduction came after Everton incurred losses of about £372 million over three years, which exceeded the league’s limit of £250 million.
Champions Manchester City is facing almost 100 allegations of violating the league’s financial regulations.
“The Super League clubs that tried to destroy the whole of European football — they were fined a total of £22 million , £3.5 million for each team, which is an absolute disgrace and a scandal for what they attempted to do, which was the attempted murder of our game,” said Neville.
The former Manchester United player’s views echoed those of other critics, including Labour MP Ian Byrne who tabled an ‘early day motion’ on Tuesday in parliament condemning the deduction and called for an independent football regulator to be established immediately.
Everton’s director of football Kevin Thelwell said the Merseyside club will use their penalty as “additional fuel” for the rest of the season.
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