Everton have been informed that their appeal over the 10-point deduction handed to them by the Premier League will be heard this week.
The club admitted to breaching the league's Profitability and Sustainability rules and on November 17 were handed the penalty which is the most severe ever given out to a top-flight club in England.
In a strongly-worded statement in the immediate aftermath of the decision, Everton said they were "shocked and disappointed" before lodging an appeal later that week.
After coming under fire for allegedly dragging their feet by both the club, pundits, and the UK government, the Premier League have now confirmed that the appeal hearing will begin on Wednesday.
The appeal will be considered during a three-day process, but the final decision will not be announced until mid-February.
In response to recommending the punishment to Everton, the independent commission in charge of the case determined "Everton's PSR calculation for the relevant period resulted in a loss of £124.5m, which exceeded the threshold of £105m permitted under the PSRs."
The club claim that mitigating factors, such as loss of player value from the pandemic, the inability to sell a player who was under police investigation, the war in Ukraine, and the building of their new stadium should all have been considered in the case.
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Everton sit just one point above the relegation zone heading into this week's midweek Premier League schedule due to the harshness of the penalty.
Without the 10-point deduction, Sean Dyche's side would be just five points shy of the top seven, despite a run of worrying form which has seen them fail to win any of their previous four league games.
The Toffees are in danger of facing another punishment after being found guilty of breaking the same rules during the following financial period to what they have already been charged for.
As calls for an independent regulator have been flooding in, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport wrote a stern letter to the Premier League, directed at CEO Richard Masters, over their attempts of self-regulation.
After calling Everton and Nottingham Forest "small clubs" when speaking in the House of Commons, the DCMS have asked for clarification of what Masters meant by this.
In addition to that, the DCMS also asked Masters to provide information and details from the meeting of the independent commission who oversaw Everton's case, and urged the Premier League to resolve the issues before the end of the season, while also applying the same formula to other similar cases not involving Everton.
Andrew Delaney
