Everton fined, banned for breaching recruitment rules

BENGALURU: Everton has been fined £500,000 ($NZ968,000) by the Premier League and banned from registering some academy players for two years after breaching young player recruitment rules by offering prohibited inducements.

The Premier League said in a statement Everton admitted to offering inducements to a player and his family to encourage him to register with the club.

When presented with evidence by the Premier League, Everton also set up an internal inquiry that discovered similar misconduct in relation to six other youngsters, the statement said.

The league fined Everton and banned it from registering players aged 1018 who have been registered with other Premier League or English Football League clubs in the previous 18 months.

The club will also have to pay compensation to the former clubs of two academy players.

Everton said in a statement it had accepted the penalties and apologised.

‘‘We have already commenced a full review of our academy operations and are committed to ensuring that issues like this do not happen again at Everton,’’ the club said.

The fine is five times that handed down to city rival Liverpool in April 2017 for a similar offence. Liverpool was also given a twoyear ban, the second year of which was suspended for three years.