Big news out of Merseyside today. It has come to light that owner Farhad Moshiri is exploring options to sell the Everton Football Club. Moshiri, a former Arsenal shareholder, purchased the club from Bill Kenwright in February 2016.
The Farhad Moshiri era at Everton has been underwhelming, to say the least. Everton has lurched from one crisis to another, despite spending £560 million on transfers during Moshiri’s time in charge. The 21/22 Premier League season was easily the worst for the Toffees. The poor recruitment is not exclusive to the pitch. Moshiri has continually made the wrong decisions. Rumors emanating out of the club accused him of being a poor delegator and also being easily influenced by agents.
After a disastrous period under former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez, the club narrowly avoided relegation. Former Chelsea legend Frank Lampard led the club to safety in the Premier League on the penultimate week of the season. Moshiri recently wrote an open letter to the fans conceding “mistakes have been made” following the club’s near miss regarding relegation.
Any new owner will need to complete the new stadium project. The Bramley Moore Dock Stadium will be the new home of Everton Football Club from the 2024/25 season. The club broke ground on the site in August 2021.
New ownership will have to contend with Everton’s FFP issues. The FFP situation is so dire at Everton that the club could not invest heavily in players last season. We expect that to continue throughout this summer as well.
WHO WILL BUY THE CLUB?
One frontrunner to purchase the club is a consortium that includes former Chelsea and Manchester United CEO Peter Kenyon. Kenyon was previously involved in a bid to take over Newcastle United. That bid failed and Mike Ashley sold Newcastle to the Saudi Sovereign Fund. He now heads a group, including some influential business people from across the pond.
The bulk of the consortium’s funding comes from US real estate tycoon Michael Kaminski. Kaminski is the chief executive of Talon Real Estate in Minneapolis. His partner is John Thornton, who is an American gold mining billionaire with ties to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. Everton has given the group a ‘period of exclusivity to undertake due diligence on the purchase.
With the debts surrounding the club, along with Moshiri’s asking price, we expect the sale of the club to reach almost a billion dollars.
MY TWO CENTS
A price tag of nearly £1 billion seems a little steep for a club that barely survived the Premier League last season. Farhad Moshiri has been keen to offload the club ever since the UK government sanctioned Alisher Usmanov because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I think he needs to stabilize the club’s EPL status before he can seriously consider walking away. However, the Kenyon group is keen to get into football club ownership, so Moshiri might make a fortuitous sale. Watch this space.
Stuart Kavanagh is a sports journalist from Melbourne, Australia. Along with being the owner of the sports and entertainment website thepyrrhic.com, he is the co-host of the ‘After Extra Time’ podcast. Football mad, he is always down for debate and discussion at @stueyissickofit on Twitter.