FFP, PSR, the Premier League, Everton and Forest.Oh, and City...

CITY and FFP, or PSR. The words seem intrinsically linked regardless of circumstances just now.

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

For Everton last year and Nottingham Forest this, City are dragged into debate and conversations surrounding the Premier League's Profitability & Sustainability Rules.

Those two clubs have been sanctioned and hit with points deductions while City's case continues and likely won't conclude before the end of next season. The list of charges facing the Blues is so long and complicated and because the consequences of the hearing will be so monumental, time has to be given for everything to be done properly.

It won't stop people using City to make whatever point is being made surrounding their own club, with context or without, but it does explain the lengthy wait.

Yet with so many headlines, hearings and appeals, it's hard to keep track of just what is going on and why. So we ask experts from City, Goodison Park and the City Ground to explain just where things are up to with the three clubs.

EVERTON'S difficulties started with themselves. The rules have been in place for some time and the club has found itself the subject of questions over its finances because of a track record of poor decisions made by those at the top.

While that may be the case, the club - like every club - deserves to be subjected to a fair, consistent and transparent process when it is accused of wrongdoing. It has been anything but.

Three different independent panels have now attempted to interpret the Premier League rules and how they apply to Everton in the form of a sanction. The first found the club deserved to be punished with a 10point deduction. The second, the appeal board, ruled the club should receive a six-point penalty. The third, the Forest commission, looked at Everton and acknowledged they could only speculate at how the appeal board arrived at that six points.