Burnley are suing Everton for £60 million, arguing that the Toffees' PSR breach during the 2021/22 season directly led to the Clarets' relegation at the end of that campaign.
The Lancashire club finished in 18th place that season on 35 points, while Everton were just two places ahead of them in 16th on 39 points. Burnley remained in the Championship for three more seasons before earning promotion for the current year.
Generally, the argument centers around the fact that because the points deduction Everton received during the 2023/24 season was due to PSR breaches in both 2021/22 and 2022/23, the Toffees gained an advantage that allowed them to stay up, causing Burnley to lose the revenue advantages of staying the top flight.
While other clubs, specifically Leicester City and Leeds, who both went down the following year, could also have grievances, neither of them have, as of now, taken any legal action against Everton.
This is a complicated issue, but, according to an article in The Athletic by Philip Buckingham, Paddy Boyland, Andy Jones, and Matt Slater, Burnley could argue that "as they finished four points behind Everotn in 2021/22, it would have been Everton who would have finished in the bottom three had those points [from the six-point deduction in 2023/24] been deducted during the same campaign as the rule break."
In short, Burnley will prove that Everton not being reasonable punished in the moment did give them a chance to avoid relegation.
The Athletic article goes on to say, via attorney Daniel Gore, that the case is not "clear-cut, as Everton's breaches were not directly related to a single player or specific playing action, but included items like infrastructure costs."
If Everton had, for example, spent the £19.5 million of overspend on a player who helped them avoid the drop, Burnley's case might be clearer. But it feels like most of the extra was just help keep the Toffees afloat and running on a day-to-day basis.
Ultimately, it isn't clear why Burnley's issue is with Everton specifically. It was the Premier League that waited to sanction the club via an independent commission, not Everton. And while the Toffees were eventually docked points for the infraction, the timeline suggests they couldn't have been punished for that season anyway, as the "breach effectively came at the end of June 2022, weeks after the end of the season."
I'm no legal expert, but it feels like this will be a tough case for Burnley to prove. Either way, it should have no impact on the season, other than what might be a hearty booing from Everton supporters at Hill Dickinson when the Clarets come to town.