Hopefully I’m not assuming a QIA sale! I tried to be careful with the liberal use of words like “if” and “possible” and “speculating.”
Like everyone else I haven’t got a clue what is going on!
If it is partial investment from someone, I hope the benefit of that finds its way into the team, and we are refreshed where we can all see the need. If partial investment simply pays shareholders for their stake, then it doesn’t seem to address what the club needs.
As a fan I am concerned. The owners seem more distant than usual, Mike Gordon isn’t around as much, recruitment and analytical expertise is leaving the club, the midfield is old and stale, and we are well off the pace in the league.
Literally every trophy that it is possible to win, has been won. One bad year does not burn the whole house down
Shankly went seven years without winning a sausage. We lose our shit if we have one fallow year.
I get that people are scared of slipping back into the pack, and I am too. But the overreaction is farcical. If Jurgen walks, I’ll be worried. But while he is here, I can believe we’ll be back.
Everton are like a lot of clubs somewhat trapped by the sense of attachment to some players - selling Gordon probably felt like it would have been selling the family silver (or ma
…the Blueshite have had no Silver for over 29yrs :0)
One interesting aspect of this is that the new rules coming in to replace FFP has simplified the rules around commercial deals in a way that is supposedly able to make them more enforceable. Under FFP there was the authority to downgrade the revenue a club reported if any of it came from related parties (CFG receiving sponsorship from another Abu Dhabi owned group) and was above market value. Apparently the issue with enforcement was demonstrating the relatedness of the other party. Moving forward that has been removed, and all commercial deals will be subject to external review to determine if they represent real market value, and if not the true market value of the deal will be what goes onto the books for UEFA spending limits.
Long and short - this should close the loop hole of clubs receiving external funding from companies related to their ownership group and pretending it is a legit commercial deal.
The rule will require the deal to be commensurate with the market as a whole so related to what other comparable clubs are able to get for the same sort of deals.
Eleven years in, it is sort of a meaningless concept. They purchased it for £300M or thereabouts, and never put any acquisition debt on the club. The club owes FSG about £72M now, having paid off a significant amount of the principal loaned to the club to expand Anfield, along with the early loan meant to get the club out of the working capital crisis it was in when they purchased it. I believe both of those were not interest-bearing. The idea of ‘their own money’ versus ‘the club’s money’ doesn’t really hold water - who owns the stand they bought for the club at zero interest, but the club is paying back the principal on? Well, the club they own does.
However, I’d say that club they own is painfully overdue some investments to refresh the playing squad, and that is about to hit the value of the club.
The fact that they haven’t begun searching for Ward’s replacement (along with their lack of investment this window) leads me to believe that we’ll be getting an announcement in the near future about their plans to sell the club. Let the new owner appoint their own sporting director. Let the new owner fund the squad refresh.
