Media personalities the world over are rushing to offer their verdict on Everton’s latest development, which has seen their deduction reduced from ten points to six.
It was a landmark ruling, and saw the partial reversing of a decision that initially left the Premier League stunned.
Nobody had ever seen anything like this before in the top flight, and, like always, the Toffees were the guinea pigs.
With the threat of an independent regulator looming, this thoughtless decision to throw the book at them has not just negatively impacted their season, but all those around them too.
And despite his relationship with Everton being somewhat rocky after the manner of his dismissal as manager, Sam Allardyce was still left furious earlier this morning.
What Sam Allardyce said about Everton
Talking live on talkSPORT (27/02, 8:15 am), the former Bolton Wanderers and Leeds United boss was speaking to Jeff Stelling and Ally McCoist about football’s outstanding news.
After all, it has drawn mass intrigue, with the masses unsurprisingly curious to learn more about a saga that has never taken place before.
The former Sky Sports Soccer Saturday host began with a question for the 69-year-old: ‘What do you make of what’s been going on at Everton?’
His reply was one of great detail and passion: ‘It’s not so much what’s happening it’s just the rules Jeff.
‘What are the rules, who is implementing the rules, what do the rules mean, how much do football clubs have to spend to defend themselves because of the rules and why do we have them? I don’t know.
‘If I was a billionaire and I wanted to buy a football club for my pleasure, for my money, I want to buy it, I don’t want to be restricted by what I want to invest.
‘Now, I know that everybody looks out about being fair and looking at the fairness of it, yes I get that, but at the end of the day, we’ve been [dealing with] football until these rules came in for year on year on year on year and does it detract from being able to find the best players in the world?
‘That’s one of the most important things to cover. The Premier League has to keep up and find the best players and certainly the best coaches and they’ve certainly got that.
‘It’s a great entertainment platform, but Everton, why do it in season? Why not do it out of season? What’s going to happen to Man City now? What going to happen to Nottingham Forest? They have to do that before the end of the season now.
‘You can’t just punish Everton and not punish if somebody else is being investigated and not punish them before the end of the season, it’s totally and utterly unfair, so where do we go from here?’
The former Everton manager is right about the Premier League
It is quite hilarious how, throughout this entire saga in which they sought to profess their strength, the general feeling that has emerged following has been one of ridicule.
The Premier League has lost so many supporters with their treatment of Everton, just as the fanbase had hoped they would.
It is an organisation that has admittedly gained few fans from those outside the ‘big six’, with the countless poor refereeing performances just the tip of the iceberg for frustrations that continue to emerge.
This marks injustice on a far greater scale, and as Allardyce notes it is not just the Toffees left affected.
The brand has been severely damaged, and people will likely watch the second appeal with even more interest to see how spectacularly they can get this one wrong too.
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