Where the prize for success is so large and the alternative path to success so impossible to achieve, the potential benefit will always outweigh the punishment of getting it wrong. It will also encourage increasingly complex ways of getting around the regulation by those who have the means to do so.

It’s something all regulators don’t seem to understand well, including the Premier League.

The Telegraph writer here doesn’t seem to have followed through his thought process to its natural conclusion.

Without wishing to go into the specifics of Everton or Man City or Chelsea and without wishing to discuss the ‘fairness’ of P&S rules it seems to me we have a system where:

1. The financial gains of sporting success, through TV money and Champions League qualification (and success), massively outweigh in both terms of size and speed, the possible gains of sustainable commercial off-field success; and

2. P&S is set up to reward a team’s commercial success and the ability to trade players at higher value - a process where the rewards are far more long-term (if at all possible for most teams).

So we have a situation that actually rewards gambling on sporting success as if the gamble pays off the rewards are huge and immediate. For teams like Man City and Chelsea who can fund the gamble with some ease it makes perfect sense for them to take that gamble and the nature of their, and now Newcastle’s, commercial ownership structure means that they will attempt to bend the rules while waiting for that gamble to pay-off.

Indeed, for teams that can afford the gamble the financial and sporting risk is negligible. For a team like, Brighton, for e.g. the sporting risk is far greater.

In short: theres way too much money sloshing around the top of English football.

Premier League: “Man City are in substantial breach. Dock Everton a further 10 points. They need to be made an example of to ensure this never happens again.”