This is what I don't understand. If the PL uncovered evidence of serious fraud during their investigation, don't they have a responsibility to inform the SFO and either have the SFO start a criminal case, or have the case thrown out? Presumably, if the fraud was continuing each year to 2018, then it is still continuing. If that is the case and the PL know about it and don't report it, at what point do they become complicit?
The reason I am asking all this is because of the pickle I think the PL finds itself. If they really are alleging fraud and conspiracy wouldn't the correct course of action to have been handing the evidence over to the SFO and then waiting for the outcome before charging the club.
The worst thing the PL can do is charge the club, find them guilty in a process that doesn't have the resources or authority to properly conclude on it, then have any follow up thrown out by the SFO. It would cost the PL billions in damages I would imagine and, in view of the people involved, cause an international incident.
As pickles go, it's a particularly acid one. All imho.