Chris, how does it "appear" that we will be selling Rodwell?? I haven’t read anywhere that there are offers imminent for young Jack.

Are you assuming that if and when a big club makes a bid for him, we will sell? Obviously everyone is for sale at a price but I don’t think you could say it is a bad habit of ours that we sell off our assets.

Wouldn’t getting our finances in check and building towards the future entail a) improving our facilities in order to (hopefully) increase our revenue stream? And b) reducing our debt and debt payments? Looks like nurturing our assets, then selling them for a tidy profit is an effective way of achieving that. You have anything more effective in mind?

Unfortunately Chris, this is part and parcel of football, and not a weakness. Since the beginning of football, and no doubt throughout the future, players will get transferred to more successful clubs. It happens from the grass roots pub teams, all the way up to the Champions League.

Make no mistake about it, if a regular CL team comes knocking for one of our players, they will want to leave. That's not anything personal against Everton, or against our policy. The CL is the pinnacle of world domestic football, of course all players aspire to play there.

The only way to stop players leaving, is by being the best team. And even then, it cannot guarantee they will stay (eg, Ronaldo).

Aiden, would it not be unreasonable in the world of business that said business makes a profit and not a loss? A fair assumption... yet, as it currently stands, the ONLY workstream at Everton FC that appears to be able to make a profit is the work of DM and his backroom coaches and staff in developing players to make a healthy profit by then selling them on.

A monoculture business; one reliant on a single product, is in a precarious situation if that product runs out as it then becomes unstuck. It’s all well that DM can develop young players that we have paid nothing or minimal fees on then hoping they turn out to become valued and coveted by other teams but what if you have a season of mediocre players coming through? What if all you have left is the players maintaining the club’s position on the EPL, what then?

The club is hiding it’s inadequacies and piss poor business plan behind the manager and team’s performance on the pitch; the club needs to be able to generate more off-field.

And please don’t give me the unproven and frankly laughable DK as the answer as that can’t even stand up to any of its original claims.

I wrote a previous article mentioning this. Due to our bad start to the season and with not being able to see the best of Arteta and Jagielka until Christmas, Yakubu going to take a long time to get back to fitness, the bedding in of Bily and the AFCON in January/February, our season could be over by then.

I believe we have a very good squad on paper that can challenge the top 4, but the hardest thing will be keeping the best players like Rodwell, Arteta and Pienaar at the club during the summer.

It doesn't make sense to pay through the nose for players like Bily or Fellaini and then sell someone who could develop far far beyond them just to keep the finances afloat.

"The club is hiding it’s inadequacies and piss poor business plan behind the manager and team’s performance on the pitch; the club needs to be able to generate more off-field."

That is an absolute gem. I am not sure if you knew, Gavin, but it is the club's business plan that finances the team that plays on the pitch each week, and all the staff and facilities that support them. I think you are being slightly unfair, the club have recently opened two new megastores, and announced two decent contracts with the shirt manufacturer and supplier.

Which other club do you think we should be trying to follow? Which club in the Premier League is well run? I think they are all completely in the shit when you look at their finances. Ours certainly ain't nowhere near as bad as others.

Our accounts don’t make too good a reading, and I agree that we will lose a "star" every year or two just to keep the books balanced.

Profit & Loss

Date Of Accounts	31/05/08	(%)	31/05/07	(%)	31/05/06	(%)	31/05/05	(%)	31/05/04
Weeks	52	(%)	52	(%)	52	(%)	52	(%)	52
Currency	GBP	(%)	GBP	(%)	GBP	(%)	GBP	(%)	GBP
Consolidated A/cs	Y	(%)	Y	(%)	Y	(%)	Y	(%)	Y
Turnover	£75,650,000	47.1%	£51,412,000	-11.5%	£58,123,000	-3.1%	£59,953,000	35.3%	£44,302,000
Export	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Cost of Sales	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-100%	£48,251,000
Gross Profit	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	100%	-£3,949,000
Wages & Salaries	£44,480,000	15.8%	£38,427,000	4%	£36,966,000	19.9%	£30,840,000	-6.2%	£32,871,000
Directors Emoluments	£470,000	10.3%	£426,000	-8.6%	£466,000	75.2%	£266,000	-	-
Operating Profit	-£5,540,000	49.4%	-£10,943,000	-23.4%	-£8,870,000	-999.9%	£6,000	100%	-£14,371,000
Depreciation	£1,792,000	-0.2%	£1,796,000	6.3%	£1,690,000	23.6%	£1,367,000	-33%	£2,039,000
Audit Fees	£35,000	-	£35,000	-10.3%	£39,000	14.7%	£34,000	6.3%	£32,000
Interest Payments	£3,877,000	31.9%	£2,939,000	19.6%	£2,457,000	-15.7%	£2,916,000	-6.7%	£3,124,000
Pre Tax Profit	£26,000	100.3%	-£9,426,000	12.7%	-£10,794,000	-145.9%	£23,509,000	252.9%	-£15,376,000
Taxation	-	100%	-£1,000	-	-	-	-	-	-
Profit After Tax	£26,000	100.3%	-£9,427,000	12.7%	-£10,794,000	-145.9%	£23,509,000	252.9%	-£15,376,000
Dividends Payable	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Retained Profit	£26,000	100.3%	-£9,427,000	12.7%	-£10,794,000	-145.9%	£23,509,000	252.9%	-£15,376,000

Sorry didn’t paste too well.
Basically Turnover of £75.6mill.
Operating profit of minus £5mill.
Overall retained profit just 26k.

Thank you for your feedback, Gavin. I particularly enjoyed the way in which your bombastic response was conspicuously devoid of any suggestions as to how finances might actually be improved.

As for DK, I deliberately avoided that pitfall in my original post. Nevertheless, the fact remains that our current facilities desperately need improving and one way or another that’s going to require massive financial investment.

So, once again, do you have anything more effective in mind?

Quote
"It appears that, yet again, we will fall into old habits by selling one of our assets to either Manchester United or Chelsea."

Who the fuck have we sold to Chelsea?

David Marsden
Good question. Did we sell them a squad player, Gary Stanley for around GBP 300,000 circa 1981 (or did he come from Chelsea and then join Swansea with Latchford??).

Diamond came from Chelsea in the early 1990s. I think we picked up a Scottish striker (whose name I forget) in the mid 1990s from them. But beyond that I cannot think of any transfer dealings between Everton and Chelsea in my time as an Everton fan. Most of that time Chelsea was in the Second Division so not much talent worth picking up from them and they were always broke until the Harding money arrived in the mid 1990s.

Gavin, Well said.

Dan, whilst there is no club that we should aim to copy per se, if we could generate turnover like Spurs then I for one would start to applaud. Not to mention the fact DM could have an extra £30m to spend.

Aiden, increase profile in Australia, SA, and the whole of the Middle East. Improve catering facilities at Goodison so that people want to eat there on match days. Sell naming rights to individual stands... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Steve, haven’t Spurs ’generated’ their income from being taken over in 2001 by Levy and his company, and subsequently used that investment to splash out a hell of a lot of money on players?

David (Ellis), We bought Gary Stanley - £300K, I think - and the forward you’re thinking of (but I try not to) was, I believe, John Spencer. Don’t forget we took Pat Nevin off them, too, a vital cog in the Nevin-beats-three-men-then-passes-it-back-to-Neil-McDonald-to-hoof-it-40-yards-to-miniature-striker-Cottee strategy.

Guy - much obliged. It was John Spencer. And I had forgotten about the excellent Pat Nevin. A time when we were cherry picking Chelsea’s best player.

Steve, none of those are bad suggestions and every little helps. The problem is a little is all we’re talking about.

How much do you think that a business would be willing to spend on the naming rights for a dilapidated stand in a rundown stadium? (unless SpecSavers sponsor all of the seats with restricted views, of course)

Last year’s TURNOVER on catering was around £880,000. We can probably do better, but there’s no way we’ll ever sell enough to generate the type of profit that can make a significant impact on the development of the club.

We could certainly sell more merchandise, both at home and abroad. Last year’s figure was £5,465,000. Sounds good until you realise that’s turnover, not profit AND it includes revenue from both sponsorship and advertising. There’s every chance that we’ll see the figures slowly grow year on year, but it seems pretty unrealistic to expect dramatic improvements without major on-field success.

As for foreign media interest, any improvement in revenue is welcome, but it will always be a drop in the ocean compared to the Sky money.

Even if we see massive improvements in all of the areas you suggest, the extra revenue raised would only be a fraction of that raised by the sale of a single half-decent player. So, I’m not saying that your suggestions would be ineffective, but as for being more effective than player sales – not even close.

Which begs the question, Aiden, what is it that Spurs do to generate an extra £30m in turnover. They aren’t more successful on the pitch, their attendances aren’t that much higher either. But something makes a difference and we, as a club not the fans, should be trying to find out what it is.

You’re not going to like the answer to that Steve - it’s largely down to being much, much better at sponsorship and corporate hospitality. We do our best but like it or not we just don’t have the same quality of facilities.

Before anyone gets too offended, I should also hastily add that we don’t have the same range of prospective clients either. London’s one of the financial capitals of the world and has an almost endless supply of wealthy business & media people with ludicrous amounts of money to burn. Merseyside... not so much.

Aiden, I don’t think the club do their best. They are absolutely pathetic at customer service / corporate. There’s no point going into detail, but you must experience it yourself on match days, trying to get a drink or hot dog, them running out, club-shop — them running out of various merchandise, match ticket cock-ups, season tickets cock-ups etc. The "entertainment" aside from football (which is another issue) is appalling — surely all must agree.

I have no idea whether the club are good at negotiating naming rights, shirt deals, transfer deals but from how terrible they are at dealing with the average fan, I have no faith in them and I see no evidence saying they’re marvellous at these aspects.

Of course our facilities need drastically improving — I think it’s a damning statement in itself that we previously had one of the best grounds and now one of the worst.

How we go to the position that the "only viable option" (according to the club) is to move to Kirkby is beyond me. Surely, this is evidence of the bad management (whether the move is good or not) — well ran businesses do not put all their eggs in one basket.

Football has moved on (for good or bad) and my view is that we haven’t because of the board's mis-management.

What difference is it when we poach players, who have been carefully nurtured and trained, from lesser clubs than ourselves?

You can’t have it both ways.

Aiden,

"You’re not going to like the answer to that Steve — it’s largely down to being much, much better at sponsorship and corporate hospitality. We do our best but like it or not we just don’t have the same quality of facilities. "

You are right, on a site that is actually smaller than Goodison Park, Spurs managed to fit out their stadium with 120 boxes and built 3 new stands, and even remodelled their own Archie Leitch East stand with new roof and corporate facilities. Not to my taste exactly, but it showed it can be readily and quite cheaply done.

In the meantime, EFC got a grant to build the Park End, the cheapest structure it could be for the capacity. In the near 20 years since the Taylor Report, that is the sum total of major investment in GP (oh, and the blue gravel of course).

Spurs, bouyed by the success of their developments and increased demand for capacity etc, have recently embarked on a process to find ways to increase capacity and corporate facilities further. This has ranged from schemes to replace 1 or 2 stands to the final scheme which means building all new over the road.

We fluffed the Kings’ Dock opportunity then jumped on the first scheme that was put to us via the old pals act that is our boardroom! As highlighted innumerable times since...... No proper stadium-led design process at all! You ask what we would do, I’d suggest that’s were you’d start!

"Before anyone gets too offended, I should also hastily add that we don’t have the same range of prospective clients either. London’s one of the financial capitals of the world and has an almost endless supply of wealthy business & media people with ludicrous amounts of money to burn. Merseyside... not so much."

I agree, Liverpool has not got the corporate clout of London, but there is significant wealth in parts of Merseyside and the surrounding areas, and it doesn’t have to be spread across so many clubs... hence the reason why our 2 clubs have historically regularly outgunned all the London clubs put together both financially and in terms of honours won, so perhaps we shouldn’t be so negative in that respect.

However, DK’s meagre 20 boxes over 8 miles from our CBD and further from the wealthy south Liverpool and Wirral suburbs seems hardly conducive of best practice to make the most of the wealth and corporate demand that is here.

Tom,

"In the near 20 years since the Taylor report that is the sum total of major investment in GP (oh, and the blue gravel of course)."

You forgot the flags outside saying "The People’s Club" which they failed to trade mark — another typical sign of our management doing our best.

Unless somehow Everton magically find investment in the next few years and then we don’t actually need to sell, then Jack Rodwell will be sold for a huge transfer fee.

Anyone who doesn’t recognise this, still lives in the fantasy world and still hasn’t woken up to realisty of modern day football and Everton’s position in modern day football. The same people who believe that this won’t happen will be the same people that argued tooth and nail that Lescott wouldn’t be sold.

Just a point to note as well, Jack Rodwell is represented by Paul Stretford’s company. We all know what their best interests as well.

The only way Jack Rodwell will remain at Everton beyond the next few years is:
a) he becomes injury prone;
b) he becomes shit;
c) we suddenly have lots of money that enable us to knock back £25 million bids.

Unfortunately, none of them are likely to happen. People can cling on to hopes and wishes all they want but the stark reality of the Premier League will prove again otherwise.

Steve Pugh, it is very simple. Have a look at the following:

Season ticket prices
Everton £443 £586
Tottenham £622 £1640

Add to this, Spurs having a long term waiting list for season tickets, then it answers your question. If you think Spurs' commercial activities fair better than ours to the tune of £30 million, then you are sadly mistaken. They only reason they make more, is because of location. Not through sound business acumen.

Increase profile in SA, Australia and Middle East? How the fuck are we meant to do that? Put up billboards? There is only one way to break these markets, and that is via success. It's hard to advertise the 5th best product, that hasn't won anything for 14 years.

I live in Southeast Asia, and CL football is broadcast more frequently than Premier League over here. Everton are very rarely on the TV playing football, so how can you increase interest? And what kind of commercial gains can you make? Sselling 10,000 more shirts is going to make a huge difference?

It appears some of our fans are already resigned to the fact that we will sell Rodwell, and are already in the throws of creating excuses for our useless chairman.

For me, Rodwell will be the final straw in a long line of fuck-ups, false dawns and lies and ultimately a non-renewal on a season ticket, as the club has zero ambition.

But what's that I hear you say... Bill is a blue and got rid of Johnson... blah, blah, blah!

Dan, the first thing we need to do is stop touring the US during pre-season and go to Oz. I can virtually guarantee that the Australians will turn out to see Timmy and Lucas Neill. If we can put on a good show, we will attract more supporters. Same in SA with Peanut. Here are two countries that like football but we ignore them.

And why the 10,000 shirt comment? Maybe some of our fans lack ambition too, there is a lot more potential in these market places than that.

Just one point, and it will probably grate with the posters that think Everton is one vast Machiavellian plot to fuck us all over, but didn’t Rooney and Lescott ask for transfer requests, despite Rooney being offered the best contract in the club’s history? And that Lescott had to be prised away from us and let’s be honest was a good piece of business. So, unless the RS and Manure are selling clubs cos they’ve sold Alonso and Ronaldo respectively, what we’ve witnessed is a good old player movin on for more money or glory.

David, David, David... didn’t you know the transfer requests weren’t real? BK made it all up and told the players he would force them to watch his entire back catalogue of Corrie episodes if they didn’t leave.

David, you’re right. I’ve already anticipated Rodwell handing in a transfer request possibly in 2 years time so I will be booing him from now on.

This thread is ridiculous. Can’t we just enjoy watching Rodwell play? If we want to get on to talking about the shambolic nature of how our club is run then why not just talk about it. Why fret over losing Rodwell at this stage?

This a Rodwell thread and so he is naturally being discussed.

Rodwell is a good player now and will become a great player but, unless we come into some money, he will be sold at some point in the furture. When the time comes, he will made to hand in a transfer request by the club before they accept a bid.

We can all enjoy watching him play for us but unfortunately, as he gets better and better, more and more fans will start to worry about this reality.

I am genuinely staggered by this post.
Even by the glass half empty, smashed and stabbed in your own heart standards of Toffeeweb this has to mark a new low of negativity.

The principle of us wailing and gnashing our teeth over the prospect that maybe, perhaps at some point in the future, we might sell a player who at the moment looks a good prospect (but let’s be honest isn’t really getting any mass enthusiasm outside of our own ground), to an unnamed club who may have more money than us/be above us in the league for an offer that has no evidence of even faintly materialising as yet just really beggars belief. Yes, I know it’s been an internatonal break, I was bored with England before the Ukraine game even kicked off, but there has to be more to discuss than this surely?

How about Felliani’s troublesome tooth, the return of Jags, the prospect of a very winnable home tie and a great European away day next week, some speculation about the return of our chief playmaker, or how we’re going manage to fit all our right backs in? Hell, even some of the habitual Kenwright, Osman and Hibbert bashing is preferential to this nonsense.

Having said that, I do respect that a lot of valid and interesting points were raised in the actual discussion (particularly liked the annual reports stuff - always good to go back to actual facts in these discussions and be very interesting to have some more dedicated posts analysing all that and talking about the sheer unsustainability of the Premier League model — a bubble of universal proportions underpinned by a TV industry that is itself facing serious difficulties with advertising revenues).

On those notes, I’d like to briefly support the view that yes, Spurs do have far greater turnover and they are smarter businessmen, but this IS largely because they’re at the heart of the country and the centre of the financial world right now AND they charge a bloody fortune for tickets/season tickets.

Ultimately I do agree with the original poster’s secondary point that yes, we do need to be more efficient as a business all over the shop (but then that’s what every business strives to do and I actually think we have made some definite strides this year with megastore and sponsorship deals and even DK, although looking increasingly farcical, does show a board who’s making efforts to push a business forward). However to make this point and to pretend that player trading is somehow not part of that business seems a somewhat naiive position.

In the modern game, the players are the most valuable products and assets and EVERY player at EVERY club has a price, this summer has underlined that point more than any other — or shall we label AC Milan, Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool all badly run selling clubs because they accepted bids for their star players?

I have no doubt whatsoever that we will continue to develop or buy-in players, potentially improve their standing and then sell them on to other clubs, who knows Jack Rodwell ’might’ even be one of them. But that really doesn’t matter, that’s just part of the business of football.

What does matter is that this process is carried out sensibly and in the best interests of the club (and for the record, I think we’re largely very good at this — selling Lescott for £24M and bringing in Distin and Heitinga was a brilliant bit of business, just as deals with Jeffers, McFadden, Johnston and Bent have been in the past) and is accompanied by the continuing maintenance and improvement of our core team and squad. As far as I’m concerned the latter has been achieved.

Have we got the best team and deepest squad in the Premier League? No.

Have we improved the quality and depth of the team (as in squad players who might actually play — I don’t want to hear AVDM) over the summer? Absolutely.

Have we also managed to do that in a manner where we effectively broke even/even potentially gave the club a chance of making a profit? Yes/No/Fuck Knows. But if so, that’s surely a bonus?

Chris,
I agree with most of what you are saying regarding the sentiment of the the thread... I think the fear is that forever selling your best isn’t where we want to be (would you be more agrieved if it were Arteta or peanut and not a centre-half going?), and it seems to be becoming a bit of a habit and the only method of financing any real investment in the squad.

Great bit of business or not, naive or not... it goes against the grain a bit and is surely a limited model! What happens when the chicken doesn’t lay the golden egg? Might our leader try pastures new?

But I get your point, Thanks to Moyes, improvements on the pitch have been steady and incremental, although I would suggest that they weren’t made in the summer, but only after the season had already started and valuable points lost, and despite a lengthy injury list that was known about for several months.

However, I have to say though, the point about DK representing a forward step on the part of the board is bewildering. Even after a major public inquiry, there is no evidence to suggest that DK in any way represents a forward step or forward thinking of any kind. Far from it.

There is also plenty to suggest that it isn’t even a board-led decision. Just as with transfers... we appear to be beholden to others and quite frankly, whether you view it as reality or not, that is not right for Everton FC. How Mr Cuff must be spinning, I’m surprised Anfield cemetery isn’t like a ploughed field because of it!

Chris, do you lie awake at night worrying about the forthcoming armageddon mate? Christ go down the pub, get yourself a pint and give your head some peace lad!!!