Chaos and confusion reign in the season of the asterisk
SO this is what football looks like in the season 2023-24 — the year of the pencil. Of the lightly drawn asterisk. Of the draconian sanctions that might be terminal to a campaign, but could also be rubbed away in a hearing and no hard feelings.
We don’t know how the situations with Everton and Nottingham Forest will play out. We don’t know if those charges issued by the Premier League yesterday will translate into deductions, just as we don’t know if Everton’s original 10-point penalty will diminish, disappear or endure in its entirety via the appeal process.
What we do know is that chaos and confusion have found themselves a comfy spot in the table, taking the place of the certainty we used to get from cold, dependable numbers. Remember when numbers were absolute? When the numbers you had when the music stopped were the numbers you were stuck with?
The music is scheduled to cease with the end of the Premier League season on May 19, but that isn’t final, either. Not now.
If we focus on the more layered scenario at Everton, the matter of their survival or demise could drag beyond the last game. Everton might celebrate staying up at
Arsenal and then lose their place days later in a judicial hearing, because asterisk two cannot be heard, appealed and resolved until asterisk one is dealt with.
That’s an almighty mess to comprehend, but it’s in keeping with football in the VAR era — no significant moment can be trusted until all checks are complete. There’s no trusting an instinct for joy, because someone, somewhere, be it at Stockley Park or the chambers of an independent panel, needs to have the final say.
Believing what you see at a given point in time, such as May 19, doesn’t cut it any more. Provisional goals and provisional sanctions and provisional celebrations are all subject to review.
The Premier League’s position here requires considerable scrutiny. Granted, they have rules that need to be kept to. And speediness in these particular cases is surely preferable to the prolonged box set drama of Manchester City, who have been left free to conquer the footballing world while 115 alleged breaches are passed through the digestive tract of expensive, prevaricating lawyers.
So the authorities shouldn’t necessarily be faulted for desire or intent. Except here’s the rub that lends itself to a touch of farce — these rules on profit and sustainability are expected to be changed in August, as is well known.
That means what is guilty in winter might be viewed as innocent in summer, by which point Everton and Forest could be in the Championship. They might be relegated on the basis of rules that are sufficiently flawed to require change. That is every bit as dubious and hard to swallow as the delays around the City case, which in its own right has raised the question of big-fish bias.
How can it be acceptable that Forest and Everton face real-time action and meaningful sanctions, when glaciers could cross a landmass in the years between the commencement of the Premier League’s City investigation in December 2018 and the ongoing wait for a resolution?
Since that investigation began they have won 12 trophies — at least one in each competition they have contested — and that says nothing for what they collected in the period when the breaches are alleged to have taken place.
If they are found guilty in what is the most serious test of British football’s credibility, it is inconceivable to expect that they will face a punishment that truly addresses the offence.
Forest and Everton seem to be facing trial on a different set of judicial scales, even if the sentence is only written in pencil.