What the PublicRecord Can Tell Us

The limit of the comparison

Everton and Nottingham Forest faced proceedings that produced published decisions. Manchester United’s accounts disclose substantial exceptional costs, but the documents examined for this essay do not disclose the League’s treatment of those costs in its calculation for the cycle ending in 2023/24.

That difference invites comparison. It also limits what a comparison can establish.

The central distinction is between a cost reported in accounts, an adjustment permitted by a rule, and an adjustment accepted in a particular assessment. Those are separate steps. A public figure at the first step does not establish the result at the third.

This essay examines the decisions and filings identified in the source notes. It makes no allegation that United received improper treatment, concealed a breach or misrepresented its position. Its argument concerns the limits of the public record and the information needed to assess consistency.

What a published decision reveals

The Premier League’s statements accompanying the 2024 cases describe private, confidential proceedings followed by publication of the commission’s final decision under the rules then in force.¹

Publication gives readers access to the tribunal’s reasoning and to the evidence it chooses to describe. It does not release every submission, supporting document or piece of correspondence. Even a lengthy decision is a selected account of a larger evidential record.

Company accounts serve a different purpose. United’s listed parent publishes consolidated financial statements through its Form 20-F. Those statements describe the group’s financial performance and accounting treatment. They are not a substitute for the football club’s regulatory calculation.²

The comparison is therefore uneven before any conclusion about enforcement is drawn. For Everton and Forest, the public can read determinations of breaches. For United, the material examined here includes accounts and disclosures without a corresponding published determination of the adjustments at issue.

The absence of that determination does not prove that the League failed to assess the club. Equally, it cannot supply the reasons for accepting or rejecting a particular adjustment.

The calculation behind the headline

PSR assessed adjusted earnings before tax over a specified period. The calculation permitted certain exclusions; it was not simply the sum of the bottom-line losses in published accounts. The rules also made provision for pandemic-related lost revenue and exceptional costs directly attributable to COVID-19, subject to the League’s guidance.³

For Everton’s period ending in 2021/22, the calculation combined 2018/19 with the average of 2019/20 and 2020/21, and then 2021/22. The pandemic averaging matters when comparing that result with ordinary three-year totals.⁴

An exclusion can improve a club’s regulatory result without reversing the loss recorded in its accounts. Eligibility depends on the applicable rules and evidence. Neither the size of a reported cost nor its description as exceptional settles that question.

Everton: relief already included

In November 2023, the commission determined Everton’s PSR loss at £124.5 million, exceeding its £105 million threshold by £19.5 million.⁴

Paragraph 129 records that Everton had already benefited from COVID exclusions totalling £70.2 million, including add-backs and averaged impairment provisions where the evidential requirements had been met. Those exclusions were reflected in the assessed result. The £19.5 million excess was not a figure calculated before all pandemic relief.⁴

The commission rejected additional arguments, including COVID-related player-trading mitigation. Its decision distinguishes the relief already obtained from further claims that did not satisfy the relevant requirements.⁴

The initial ten-point deduction was reduced to six on appeal in February 2024. The appeal concerned sanction rather than the admitted fact of breach. The Appeal Board identified material errors in the original approach, including findings concerning candour and utmost good faith that it held should not have been made, and the treatment of relevant sanctioning benchmarks.³

That appeal belongs in any account of the first decision. Reporting the original reasons without the later corrections would give an incomplete picture.

A separate commission imposed two points in April 2024 for an admitted £16.6 million breach in the period ending in 2022/23. That was a different assessment period; it did not replace the earlier calculation.⁵

Forest: a different threshold

Forest’s March 2024 decision records a PSR loss of £95.536 million against a £61 million threshold, producing an admitted breach of £34.536 million. The lower threshold reflected its two Championship seasons within the assessment period.⁶

The reasons also disclose an adjustment dispute. The League assessed that Forest could claim £2.5 million of the £11.211 million it sought as its 2021/22 COVID add-back. That assessment formed part of the route to the admitted loss figure.⁶

For sanction, the commission arrived at six points before reducing the deduction by two for the early admission and cooperation together. The resulting four-point deduction was upheld on appeal in May 2024.⁶⁷

Forest’s case therefore provides evidence of both a calculation and a sanctioning process. It does not establish a universal price, in points, for each pound of excess loss. Its threshold, evidence and mitigation must travel with the numbers.

United: what “exceptional” establishes

United’s 2024 Form 20-F records £47.778 million of exceptional items in Note 6:²

The filing explains separate disclosure by reference to the items’ significance. That establishes their treatment in the financial statements. It does not establish that all, or any particular portion, was excluded from the Premier League calculation.²

The filing also describes a compliance submission made in March 2024 using the financial years ending in 2021, 2022 and 2023. That statement relates to the earlier cycle. It should not be presented as a published reconciliation of the cycle ending in 2024.²

The missing link is the regulatory treatment: which amounts were claimed, which were accepted, under what provision, and with what effect on the final result. The documents examined here do not supply that reconciliation.

It would be equally unjustified to assume that the entire exceptional-items total was excluded or that none of it could properly qualify. Both conclusions require evidence beyond the accounting label.

Uefa’s finding answers a separate question

In July 2023, UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body reported a minor break-even deficit at United and imposed a €300,000 fine.⁸

That is a published European regulatory outcome. It does not establish the Premier League’s treatment of individual adjustments, or that a domestic calculation was false. A comparison requires attention to the rules, reporting periods and evidence used in each assessment.

What transparency should provide

These cases cannot, from the documents examined, sustain a finding of preferential treatment. Nor can those documents demonstrate that every disputed adjustment was treated consistently. The record is too incomplete for either conclusion.

That is a reason to ask for better information, rather than to invent the missing calculation.

One way to improve confidence would be to publish a clearer account of how material adjustments are assessed. The League could publish guidance and anonymised examples explaining the relevant categories, evidential standards and reasons for acceptance or refusal. Where confidentiality permits, aggregate reporting could show how those standards operate across clubs.

This is a proposal for transparency, not a finding that any club obtained an improper allowance. Different amounts may follow from different circumstances under a consistently applied rule. To judge that consistency, readers need to understand the circumstances and the reasons.

Everton and Forest show what published proceedings can reveal. United’s filing shows what company accounts can reveal. The space between them remains a limit on the comparison.

A credible argument about unequal treatment has to cross that space with evidence. Until it does, the conclusion should remain proportionate to the record: there is enough information to identify the question, but not enough to decide it.