One charge could cost Everton 12 points but Premier League remain quiet on Manchester City’s 115

A chill wind appeared to be sweeping east along the M62 as Everton face the prospect of a potential 12-point deduction if their innocent pleas fall flat.

“What about Manchester City,” came cries by the thousand as Telegraph Sport reported the Premier League is pushing for a brutal outcome against the already troubled Toffees. This publication’s columnist, Jamie Carragher, joined the chorus, joking that “City are going to end up in the National League North if the PL get their way.”

The noise around City had “gone very quiet”, he added, drawing comparison to the storm around Everton as the club appears before an independent panel.

Inevitable comparisons reflect the feelings of many within Premier League boardrooms, who regularly question privately the speed with which City are being brought to court.

But those closest to the process say drawing parallels between the two cases is futile. Both will finally test the fortitude of the English top tier’s profit and sustainability rules for the first time. But the cases themselves are incomparable in scope, simplicity and timescale, insiders with knowledge of the cases.

Both clubs deny breaching financial fair play rules, but Everton’s case, unlike City’s, was all-but-ready to be heard when charges were announced in March. The assessment period for Everton is the three year term ending 2021-22 and reportedly relates to a tax issue surrounding loans for the club’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

Such claims will be pretty straightforward to iron out either way in contrast with the 100-plus occasions in which City are alleged to have broken the rules over multiple financial cycles. For City, if they were all proven, they would amount to the greatest offences committed by a club in the history of the competition. Charges include failing to “include full details” of player and manager remuneration, failing to comply with rules regarding financial fair play and failing to cooperate in a Premier League investigation that had concluded after more than four years. The financial charges cover the period 2009-2018 alone.

But while the treble winners were charged a month before Everton, any sort of verdict for City could remain years away. As they were accused of failing to give “a true and fair view of the club’s financial position”, no date was given for when they would appear before an independent commission appointed by the chair of the Premier League judicial panel, Murray Rosen KC.

Even now it is not clear and some estimate it will be beyond next season before the saga is resolved, with legal teams still being assembled ahead of a battle royal.

However, in calling for Everton to face a potential 12-point ban, it seems unthinkable that the Premier League would not have something even more severe for City in mind.

The independent commission which will consider the charges could, according to handbook guidelines, recommend that City be expelled from the competition, suspended or docked points if it finds the club guilty. In fact, a commission is clear to apply any punishment it considers appropriate.

When it eventually comes to it, the stakes are significantly higher for City. At Everton, 777 are understood to have factored in potential relegation this season, with charges known when the American firm tabled their offer to Farhad Moshiri.

For City, however, defeat is unfathomable. Last May, the manager, Pep Guardiola, suggested he would leave if he felt the hierarchy had lied to him. “When they are accused of something I ask them: ‘Tell me about that,’” he said. “They explain and I believe them. I said to them: ‘If you lie to me, the day after I am not here. I will be out and I will not be your friend any more. I put my faith in you because I believe you 100% from day one and I defend the club because of that.’”

But there are hundreds of thousands more pages of paperwork to be worked through before such matters are pondered. City have already overturned a Uefa Champions League ban, winning an appeal via the court of arbitration for sport on the basis of claims being time-barred.

Since the Football Leaks hack in 2018 which were said to show that City had inflated the value of sponsorship deals from Abu Dhabi companies, City have always vociferously denied any wrongdoing. “The club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position,” the club said. “As such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all.”

City will be following Everton’s outcome as closely as anyone, but attempting to draw any conclusions from it in terms of their own fate will be pointless.