Abstract
This paper asks what a reader can know about whether the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules were applied equally, and why. It uses published commission decisions, a listed company’s filings, the Premier League Handbook, and the League’s own account of its publication practice.
Everton’s commission found an adjusted loss of £124.5 million for the period ending 2021/22, £19.5 million over the £105 million threshold, after COVID exclusions of £70.2 million had already been allowed. Forest’s commission recorded a loss of £95,536,000 against a £61 million threshold, a breach of £34,536,000, which the club admitted. No commission decision publishes Manchester United’s calculation for the cycle ending 2023/24. United’s Form 20-F records exceptional items of £47.778 million, of which £34.574 million relates to a strategic review and share-sale agreement. That filing is not the League’s assessment.
The difference in what can be read follows from how publication works. A submission goes to the Board. A decision is published only when a complaint has been determined. The documents prove uneven publication. They do not prove uneven treatment.
Question and method
The question is evidentiary. Can the published record show that the same spending rule was applied to every club? The method is to separate four classes of document. A commission decision is a finding. A statutory filing is what a company reported. A Handbook rule is what the clubs agreed. A letter from the League’s chief executive is the League’s account of its practice. Commentary that reconstructs an unpublished submission is not used. If a figure is not in a decision, a filing or a rule, the paper says so.
Everton and Forest are included because complaints were determined and the reasons were published. Manchester United is included because it is listed, so its accounts are public, and because published commentary in August 2024 questioned whether its COVID adjustment had been treated in the same way as other clubs’.14 The paper tests that question against the documents. It does not adopt the commentary’s inference. No complaint against United for the relevant cycle has been published.
Other uncharged clubs also have accounts. They are not surveyed. The choice compares published decisions with an unpublished submission. It is not a census.
The rule on the calculation
Forest’s commission recorded the mechanism. Every member club submits audited accounts for the two preceding years and an estimated profit and loss account and balance sheet for the current year. During the period in question, to reflect the pandemic, the calculation used a two-year mean of the earlier seasons.4
COVID costs could be excluded under the League’s guidance: lost revenues and exceptional costs directly attributable to the pandemic. The Everton commission recorded the thresholds it applied. A loss of up to £15 million had a limited consequence. A loss above £15 million and up to £105 million required the club to show secure funding. Above that, the Board could refer a complaint.1 Forest’s threshold was £61 million, not £105 million, because two of its three seasons were in the Championship.4
The exclusion did not name a club, and neither decision describes a cap on the amount. A larger loss could therefore be excluded, if it was proved. Whether any club proved a larger one is not in the published record.
Why the record is uneven
Three publication rules operate at once.
The submission goes to the Board, not the public. In a letter to the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, following his evidence of 16 January 2024, the League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, wrote: “being a private business, it is not our practice to provide or publish minutes of Premier League Board Meetings. Nor are we able to publish submissions the Premier League Board or Executive make as part of confidential legal proceedings.” The letter is quoted from the full text published by ToffeeWeb.6 The Handbook points the same way. Rule B.18 bars a club from disclosing confidential information about another club’s business or finances without the Board’s consent.7 In fair-market-value disputes under the 2023/24 Handbook, comparable transaction data could go to the parties’ external lawyers and experts but not to the parties, and clubs undertook not to seek disclosure of the League’s Databank.8 No rule found in the Handbooks consulted gives one club a right to see another club’s calculation.
A decision is published when a complaint has been determined. Forest’s commission recorded that its decision was made publicly available on 18 March 2024.4 Everton’s first decision was published on 17 November 2023.1 The League’s statement on Everton’s second decision notes publication under the then Rule W.82.2.3
Accounts are public under a different rule. A company listed in New York files a Form 20-F. A private club files accounts at Companies House. Neither filing is the adjusted calculation sent to the League. A COVID claim made only to the League is in neither. It stays unpublished unless a decision describes it.
The documents used here give no longer reason for keeping an uncharged club’s file private than the one in Masters’ letter. The rules themselves were agreed by the clubs: the Everton Appeal Board described them as not imposed by an external regulator, and the Forest commission adopted that description.2, 4 The effect is what can be stated. The detail goes to the Board. It reaches the public only if a complaint is determined.
What the published decisions contain
The Everton commission adopted the Premier League’s figure: an adjusted loss of £124.5 million for the period ending 2021/22, £19.5 million over the £105 million permitted. Everton’s own calculation, submitted in March 2023, had shown an adjusted loss of £87.1 million. In its amended pleadings the club put the excess at £7.9 million. By the end of the hearing it argued £9.7 million.1
Paragraph 129 records that Everton had already been allowed COVID exclusions of £70.2 million, where the evidential standard had been met. Further claims were refused, including arguments about COVID-related player trading, a transfer levy and pre-planning stadium interest.1 The commission ordered a ten-point deduction. An Appeal Board substituted six points in February 2024.2 A later commission recorded an admitted breach of £16.6 million for the period ending 2022/23 and imposed two points.3 Those later decisions do not amend the £124.5 million finding.
Forest’s commission recorded a loss of £95,536,000 against a £61 million threshold, a breach of £34,536,000, which Forest admitted.4 An appeal against the sanction was later dismissed.5
What has not been published
No commission decision concerning Manchester United’s calculation for the period ending 2023/24 has been published. This paper does not infer what the Board allowed, or what any other treatment of the accounts would have produced. In its Form 20-F the club states that it supports and operates within the rules. That is the club’s statement. It is not a Board finding.9
The Form 20-F for the year ended 30 June 2024 records exceptional items of £47.778 million:9
| Accounting item | £ million |
|---|---|
| Strategic review and share-sale agreement with Trawlers Limited | 34.574 |
| Compensation for loss of office | 12.334 |
| Football League pension-scheme deficit | 0.870 |
| Total | 47.778 |
Accounting disclosure, not a reconciliation of permitted exclusions. Form 20-F, Note 6.
Earlier, the club’s results for the quarter ended 31 December 2023 reported exceptional costs of £9.6 million incurred on the strategic review and agreed share sale, and said further exceptional items would be recognised after Premier League and FA approval.10 Its results for the quarter ended 31 March 2024 reported exceptional costs of £30.3 million relating to the sale of 27.7% of the voting rights to Trawlers Limited.11 The quarterly releases are not presented as a reconciliation to the annual note. All of these are costs in the accounts. None is a published add-back.
In July 2023 UEFA fined the club €300,000 for a minor break-even deficit over the financial years 2019 to 2022.12 The club said the fine reflected a change in the way UEFA adjusted for COVID-19 losses during the 2022 reporting period, which allowed it to recognise only €15 million of the €281 million of revenues it said it lost to the pandemic.13 The €281 million is the club’s stated pandemic revenue loss for the monitoring period its statement addressed. The statement does not say what the Premier League accepted. UEFA’s test is a different test.
How a club knows
A club does not learn from another club’s submission that the other club is inside the line. It knows the Handbook, because the clubs adopt it. It knows its own calculation, because it filed it. It knows that the Board receives every submission and may refer a breach.
Clubs owe one another a duty. Rule B.15 requires each club to behave towards each other club and the League with the utmost good faith; acting dishonestly towards the League or another club, or engaging in conduct intended to circumvent the rules, are given as examples of breach.7 That is a duty. It is not a right to see the file. Rule B.18 points the other way: it restricts what a club may pass on about another club’s finances.7
What a club can read is another club’s filed accounts, and a commission decision if a charge was brought. Accounts are not the adjusted calculation. A decision appears only after a breach has been alleged and determined. Between those two, the assurance that every other club is inside the framework is the Board’s. Masters’ letter states that assurance: that the Board applies the rules consistently, irrespective of the club in question.6 The parity the Handbook describes is enforced by that private check. It cannot be verified from any document the rules require to be shared.
Conclusion
The published record supports four propositions. The COVID exclusion was general and conditional on direct attribution, and neither decision describes a cap on the amount. Everton were allowed £70.2 million of it, were refused further claims, and were £19.5 million over. Forest admitted a breach of £34,536,000 against a lower threshold. Both calculations are public because complaints were determined.
United’s submission is not public, and no decision about it has been published. United’s accounts are public because the company is listed, and they show transaction costs, not the Board’s treatment of them.
The unevenness the documents prove is uneven publication. They do not prove uneven treatment. A wording that excludes proved pandemic losses allows a larger loss to be excluded, if it is proved. Whether any unpublished submission did so is not in the published record. Where the check is left with the Board and only determined charges are published, parity cannot be verified from any document the rules require to be shared, in any case where no charge is brought. That is the limit of the record.