An inglorious afternoon for the Premier League met a fittingly unedifying end.
One club with an asterisk next to its name had defeated another, yet the beaten team, with relegation worries deepening, chose to go down swinging. A social media post questioning the neutrality of a matchday official was sent through verified channels before the stadium had even emptied.
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The Points Deduction Derby — El Deductico — was the Premier League presented in its most desperate light.
A scratchy contest, low on finesse and high on controversy, had been won 2-0 by Everton but Nottingham Forest chose to present their sense of injustice as something more sinister. “Premier League, corrupt as f***,” their fans had sung during the game and that inference could be found in a club statement that will almost certainly bring a Football Association disciplinary charge.
The post on X had been viewed 38million times by Monday morning.
Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept.
We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times.
NFFC will now consider its options.
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) April 21, 2024
“Our patience has been tested multiple times,” it said, citing three penalty appeals overlooked by video assistant referee (VAR) Stuart Attwell, said to be a fan of relegation rivals Luton Town.
This is the world in which Forest — and, at times, Everton — have chosen to bunker down since points were deducted for breaches of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). Against the backdrop of Manchester City’s 115 historical charges that are yet to be heard, the punishments handed down have encouraged suspicion to take root and, on the really bad days, pointed towards corruption where there is only incompetence.
This was one of those for Forest, who remain just one point above the relegation zone when the buffer would have been five if not for the four docked last month. Everton are now four points better off with a game in hand, but would have been safe for another year had two PSR charges of their own not resulted in them losing a total of eight points.
Only the failings of the bottom three ensured the collective mood was not more fraught inside Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon, but a landmark chapter in the Premier League’s 32-year history — a first game involving two clubs docked points for financial mismanagement — scratched at the competition’s polished veneer.
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A month of the season remains and, as Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo said afterwards, there is still a heavy “atmosphere of uncertainty” at the foot of the table. Forest and Everton have launched appeals they believe can see points reinstated, with legal battles taking on the same weight as football matches down the final straight.
The weekend gave Everton greater clarity but, for Forest, who face Manchester City next, there was a pivot back towards paranoia. “If we were in another country, we would start talking about conspiracy,” Nuno said.
The away enclosure at Goodison Park, located in the Bullens Road Stand, marks the starting point of the Everton Timeline.
It is a potted, illustrated history that wraps around three sides of the stadium and above the turnstiles welcoming Nottingham Forest supporters is Everton’s proud status as one of the Football League’s founding members in 1888. They were around for the Premier League’s formation in 1992 as well, just like Forest.
An hour before kick-off, there is already anxiety in the air. Steve Waring and son-in-law Mitchell Gill have travelled from their homes close to Mansfield to be part of a sold-out Forest away end.
“I’ve always been a believer we’ll get out of it, but we’ve got to win today,” says Waring. “These are in a bad place. We don’t want it coming down to playing Burnley away on the last day of the season and needing something.”
Everton were, indeed, in a sticky spot. A 6-0 defeat at Chelsea six days earlier meant they had won just once in 15 Premier League games. Forest were little better: two wins in 13 and grateful for Luton’s 5-1 drubbing at home to Brentford on Saturday, a result that kept Forest out of the relegation zone.
It had been a bad week off the field, too. Enormous hikes to season ticket prices in 2024-25 have fractured a once united club before crucial fixtures in the battle to avoid relegation.
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Forest have attempted to justify the average rise of 24 per cent as a means of generating greater revenues and that leads the debate, inevitably, back to the PSR charge that found the club’s losses had gone £34.5million ($42.7m) beyond their allowable limit. Financial folly ultimately had ambition at its heart.
“How can you invest and grow if you’ve got a budget that’s classed as an EFL one,” said Gill, citing Forest’s accounting period that included two years in the Championship, where losses are capped at £13million a year, rather than the £35m permitted in the Premier League.
“So 17 other teams in the league can spend more than we can. That’s not a level playing field. You’ve got Manchester City and their 115 charges — what’s happened to them? I get that it’s complicated but you can’t let someone potentially win a title when they shouldn’t. It’s not right.
“The whole system needs looking at. It’s corrupt how big teams can be out on the pitch celebrating league titles with all these charges hanging over them. We go over by £30million and we’re the crooks with four points taken off us. Something doesn’t sit right there.”
Mikey Clarke, a Forest season ticket holder, has similar gripes. “You had clubs saying they were off to join a Super League (in 2021) and got off scot-free,” he says. “Honestly, it’s like they’re making it up as they go along. It’s ridiculous.
“We did wrong, we did deserve a punishment but the rules just aren’t fit for purpose. It’s shambolic.”
Forest’s four-point deduction in March was sandwiched by two different penalties for Everton, a club that had aimed for the stars and ended up in the gutter. The first, for a PSR breach in 2021-22, brought an initial 10-point deduction in November, reduced to six on appeal. The second, for another breach in 2022-23, saw Everton docked another two points earlier this month.
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The Premier League’s naughty kids have sympathy for one another. “When they got deducted 10 points initially, I had proper empathy for them then,” says Clarke. “All these charges in the Premier League and you’ve got a club that’s moving ground, trying to grow and they’re being done. You get nine points for administration.”
Everton, in truth, have become a club that has moved on from its points deductions. The anger and organised protests that came with a 10-point penalty at the back end of 2023 have been diluted by greater concerns. The proposed takeover by 777 is no nearer to completion and the stasis brings question marks over the long-term financial health of a club where Farhad Moshiri, owner since 2016, has withdrawn funding.
Everton are an ailing, drifting club a year out from a relocation to Bramley-Moore Dock — a superb, purpose-built 53,000-capacity stadium that was supposed to change everything.
“It’s an absolute soap opera,” says Jez Clein, an Everton regular, home and away. “There are so many things going on. Everyone is becoming a lawyer or an accountant when all we really want is to go and watch our team on the pitch. It’s a different story every day. It’s almost a relief going to a match and just worrying about that.”
There was plenty to be concerned about when routed by Chelsea last Monday, but the vitriol aimed at the Premier League is not what it was. The first appeal, reducing the 10 points to six, as well as the second deduction of just two points, have quietly been considered useful results around Goodison Park.
One terraced house on Gwladys Street is noticeable for having three of the pink “Corrupt” flyers, of which thousands were held up before Manchester United’s visit five months ago, still in its living room window. One drinker outside the packed Winslow Hotel pushes back on the idea the anger has gone. “Just you watch if we lose here or against Sheffield United in our last home game,” he says.
“Forest are probably more bitter about the points deduction,” says Clein, a contributor to the All Together Now podcast. “Everton fans have gone through so many different emotions this season. Initially with the 10 points it was bitterness with the league and it’s moved towards anger with our own club. There’s a saying that no one hates Everton more than the fans do. And that’s so right.
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“The problem will be the frustration if we’re not winning (against Forest). And God forbid we go a goal down…”
He need not have worried.
“There’s a morbid curiosity to the game,” says Clarke. “Old fashioned, community-based, provincial clubs if we’re honest. Everton and Forest are viewed similarly. Used to be good in the past, not so much anymore. But we’ve both been done for trying to compete.”
There was plenty to unite Everton and Nottingham Forest and, together, there were the now customary jeers for the Premier League’s anthem, played out as the two teams lined up to shake hands before kick-off.
Only one point split the teams pre-game and the atmosphere was heavy with dread. One banner in the Gwladys Street End and another in the visitors’ section claimed their teams to be magic, but the best trick either has managed this season was to make points disappear. Errors, poor touches and misplaced passes were everywhere.
The first of Forest’s penalty appeals, for Ashley Young clipping Gio Reyna’s foot, was waved away before Everton grabbed a hard-fought lead they would not relinquish, hitting the front through Idrissa Gueye’s daisy-cutter from 25 yards out.
The ball struck Young’s hand to make it two compelling Forest penalty claims late in the first half. “Anthony Taylor, it’s all about you,” sang the visiting fans, who also rolled out their first accusation of corruption against the Premier League. That came again early in the second half when Young was again fortunate not to be punished when bringing down Callum Hudson-Odoi in the penalty box.
Everton, who have previously cited corruption and shadowy motives, did not appear to join in.
“You Scouse b******s, you cheat more than us,” was the last chant of the Forest fans once Dwight McNeil had taken the game from their reach with a second goal that, realistically, means Everton need to secure just one more win from their remaining five games. Liverpool are next up on Wednesday night.
“I’d be happier if people didn’t take points off us in the middle of the season,” said Everton manager Sean Dyche afterwards.
Forest, though, were fizzing. The social media post that inferred Attwell should not have served as the VAR owing to his background supporting Luton depicted a club losing faith in the league it had spent over 20 years attempting to join. Nuno only doubled down.
“I share the feeling of the club because it’s not only this game,” he said. “It has been a while that we have had poor decisions against us. It is not an excuse, but we are not comfortable with the work of the referees.”
Forest left Goodison Park with regrets and recriminations. Without winning their appeal, due to be held on Wednesday, the four points lost in March still threaten to be what leads them back to the Championship.
(Top photo: MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)