Everton have been told to pay Burnley £35m after a Premier League commission ruled that a breach of the club’s financial rules in the 2021-22 season cost Burnley their place in the Premier League. The award includes £26m in damages and £9m in interest, and Everton have already said they will appeal.
The ruling lands nearly three years after the season at the centre of the dispute, when Everton finished 16th on 39 points, Leeds finished 17th on 38 and Burnley went down in 18th on 35. Burnley argued that Everton’s profit and sustainability breach changed the relegation picture and left them facing the losses that come with dropping out of the top flight.
That claim has now been accepted by the commission. It said Burnley’s evidence was more compelling and projected a gain for Everton of between 3.85 and 7.13 points, adding that, on the balance of probabilities, Everton’s breach caused Burnley to be relegated. The commission’s finding turns a long-running PSR fight into a direct compensation order, not just a points case, and it gives Burnley a financial recovery tied to the damage they say they suffered.
Everton, though, are not backing down. In a statement, the club said it was clear in its belief that the ruling was fundamentally flawed in both law and fact, called it a dangerous and unworkable precedent for English football, and said the panel had misrepresented the evidence put forward by its legal team. The club says it defended itself robustly and thoroughly, but the commission sided with Burnley’s case.
The dispute sits inside a wider financial battle that has already seen Everton charged by the Premier League and hit with a 10-point deduction in November 2023, later reduced to six points on appeal and applied to the 2023-24 table. Burnley’s compensation claim also matters because the Premier League says it cannot impose points deductions in the same season the offence happens, since the accounting period runs to the end of June, leaving clubs to fight over the fallout after the fact.
Everton’s appeal is now the next step, and the club will argue that the commission got both the law and the facts wrong. What matters next is whether that challenge can overturn a ruling that has already put a price on relegation, and whether the league’s latest financial case ends as a one-off award or a precedent other clubs will soon test.
