David, good post and how most of us feel. EFC sadly is not an attractive buy simply based on the initial outlay any would-be investor would have to make. The only type of person who could take over would need to have to invest between £300/600 million from their own assets to build a new stadium or redevelop GP, buy all outstanding shares, pay of debit including penalties and invest in players.

Man City, whilst a strange purchase had the infrastructure in place so they were able to make an instant hit by putting all their focus and money in to the player side. EFC is expensive and minimum a 3/5 year project and most people of that wealth don’t normally look for such long-term toys, but then again who knows? maybe we can get lucky.

Sadly the bar has been raised considerably in just one year by City, Spurs and Villa who all sit in a similar bracket as EFC in football terms but we are light years behind them with all three not even having debt. Villa has always been run in the black and Spurs as a business model are in the top 3. EFC don’t raise enough revenue to compete, tickets prices are too low and too many concessions, my mate who sits next to me has had a children’s ticket for nearly 40 years now!!! COYB

Every reason Alan has said is correct — I’d just like to add one other. And that is, quite simply, that Everton isn’t for sale. Nothing Kenwright says will make me think any different. The man is a tyrant — it’s his club in the same way Libya is Gaddafi’s country. It’s his pet. He runs it on a shoestring at no cost to him.

He spends next to nothing on playing staff net per season, he hasn’t improved any facility from his own pocket — yet he placates the gullible by rolling out tired media cliches every so often (Arteta’s the new Golden Vision, anyone?) and that fools the fans into thinking "Blue Bill" is fantastic.

I have nothing but derision for the man.

A much more measured assessment of the current malaise than most David. The whole atmosphere is low at the moment. I am genuinely looking forward to the new year though. When we have all the players back I believe we have a team that can compete and play the good football we were playing before we lost Arteta and Yakubu.

I know nobody likes the excuses and there’s lots of other reasons that are important, but you can’t overstate the impact of losing a 20-goal-a-season striker and the guy who made most of those goals for the length of time they’ve been out.

I am one worried toffee as I am sure you are all to. 11 points in the league and already out of a cup. Its not looking good. Who on earth would want to invest in us.

We seem to be going backwards not forwards.

I have always been a fan of David Moyes, but this season it is really starting to waver due to the constant moaning and excuses about injuries and team selection.

Yes, we have a lot of players out at the moment but there a good number of first team regulars still playing. So there is NO EXCUSE for the dismal displays we have all had to sit through for the most part of the season.

We can’t even string two passes together never mind even look like a team that can get a result. Now the media blackout that he has started only proves that now he has also thrown his toys out of the pram.

Everyone looks to the manager for support and encouragement and at the moment that is really lacking, and damaging to the team and support overall.

Let's all hope that he gets it together like he always seems to, to be fair, or is this season one to far?

John, I don’t blame Moyes for bemoaning his luck with injuries this season, I have never in all my years of watching Everton seen such a list of injuries to our first teamers. Just look at the fat waiter across the way, he is missing 3....that’s 3 players and in the papers it is classed as an injury crisis, I wish we had only three injuries, all it takes is Howard to get hurt and our injured side would be a cracking team capable of taking on most sides.

I am glad he also spoke out about the 3 games in 6 days issue too, imagine the red nosed one at ManUre if he had to do that with a depleted squad, I vet the FA would manage to alter his fixture to the Thurday.

I am down and flat as the opening poster states but it has been for more than this season, I have mentioned I have been disillusioned with fottball in general for a year or two now and it is a struggle to keep renewing my season ticket, not because of the more prevalent dire football being served up but because of football as a whole.

The bottom line is that we need investment/new owner to progress, its as simple as that.

Since we finished 4th in 2004-05, we have only been out of the top 6 once and 5th two years on the trot. That won’t happen this season.

With those League positions, the Board should have been giving the Club the Hard Sell to anyone with funds to get them onboard but they have done absolutely nothing.

The Club are in this situation because we can’t compete financially and if those clowns were any sort of real business people, they would have known that 5 years ago if they were capable of creating a Business Plan, which is the basic problem.

The whole Board are incompetent, if they can’t find investment for a Club with such a rich past and have been the ’best of the rest’ for the last 2 Seasons then they should hide their heads in shame.

They have allowed this pitiful situation to happen and DM has really only papered over the cracks in this Great Club by getting groups of players to cover up the underlying problem with their on-the-field performances. DM must be at the end of his tether, this has been going on for far too long and I’m sure he is as sick of this as we are.

Granted he is not perfect, but he’s the best we can hope for right now and he is the only one keeping the club from dropping out of the Premier League. But I’m sure he won’t go on carrying this Club fir much longer.

I am absolutely sick of seeing BK only show his face when good things are happening on the park, he is an actor and he and others are dragging this club down with their apathy.

My concern now is that those good league positions may well be a thing of the past and that will make it even harder to get new investment. That should have been done when we had a good record in the League but I fear that too is on its way out.

Until we, the supporters and the ones who live and breath the club (unlike the so called buisnessmen on the Board who look at it as a hobby) make our feelings known, it will carry on and we could well become a mid-table team, at best, for a long time to come.

Maybe its time to show our anger the way the RS did last week, not just once but regularly. The Club obviously try to silence official protest by gagging us for any comments at AGMs etc, but we cannot just sit back and let them get away with letting OUR club become another Middlesborough.

The myth of the Peoples Club has long since gone but maybe we should start to make more noise about how the clowns in charge of the Club are not interested in making this Club great again.

Between £300 and £600 mill?


Any chance you could explain this wildly inflated figure?

Ciaran, I think Alan did explain



The only type of person who could take over would need to have to invest between £300/600 million pounds from their own assets. New Stadium or redevelop GP, buy all outstanding shares, pay of debit including penalties and invest in players.

Or to break it down
150 to buy club?
200 new stadium?
60 debt?
40 - 80 for players to challenge for league

So on that we are at 450 pretty quick
Even 100 to buy club and 100 for stadium is still 300.

Not that inflated

Firstly, £150M for a club with allegedly £90M debt? And all current revenue streams service this debt?

What is this figure based upon? This is pie in the sky, the club is worth nothing like this...

Secondly, various professionals have been on this and other websites with detailed costings for redeveloping Goodison at around the £100M mark...

Thirdly, why would a buyer have to BOTH pay off the debt and source funding for new players? Our revenue streams currently services the debt... therefore if we paid of the debt then the revenue streams would be freed up for team investment. There would be no requirement to do both....

So he hasn’t actually explained anything at all... let alone his valuation of the club...

No doubt I’ll be dismissed as knowing nothing about business... as Mr WIlliams has done to several posters in the last few days — while clearly displaying his lack of knowledge.

"Even £100M to buy club and £100M for stadium is still £300M."

-------------------------------

No mate, that’s £200M... and £100M for this club is way over the odds.

David - I came on to write a post about my current feelings towards the club... no need - you have summed up my feelings perfectly! Thanks.

Agree totally with the general theme of this thread — and a great reply by Alan Williams.

Lee Kidd, you too have echoed my personal summary of "Blue Bill". Although I can’t help feeling that if Kenwright was a real tyrant, he might be a little more successful (?). The guys a fucking bum — one of life’s classic losers.

Still, we’ll never give up - COYB!

Oh, and Russ Quinlan.. spot on mate!

"The myth of the People's Club has long since gone but maybe we should start to make more noise about how the clowns in charge of the Club are not interested in making this Club great again."

I’m wondering if anyone can tell me... bearing in mind the current state of affairs, doesn’t having "Nil Satis Nisi Optimum" under the badge constitute some form of false advertising??

The club should have planned for a move or redevelopment since the Kings Dock move fell apart. The impression I get is they didn’t have a clue what to do until Tesco Terry comes in, and they bit his hand off without thinking of the mid to long term effect. It just seems across the board that we lack ideas, and initiative.

Player development is key to a club like us. If ever Baxter, Wallace, Agard etc were going to get a chance to prove themselves it would have been the last week, instead they sat on the bench whilst the same exhausted players dragged themselves through 90 minutes. Instead these lads will be stuck at the Stobart playing games of Conference level.

Even our transfer policy seems sporadic as opposed to careful planning. We were told "bright young things" and never got any of them.

I totally agree with you David,

I bought a ticket for this weekend’s game yesterday. I almost had to justify it to myself even though I had nothinge else planned for Saturday. This is the first time I’ve ever considered not going to a game and that has depressed me in a way.

Like others have stated it's not just Everton’s current malaise but the state of football as a whole. I know some people refer to this as progress but in my eyes the game has been finally eroded from being a ordinary man’s preserve and been handed on a silver platter to the PR and global marketing men. The game as we knew it is now a gravytrain for those in the posh seats and the rest of us are just the poor fools paying the season ticket prices to watch our team fruitlessly attempt to take any silverware off the chosen clubs.

I’m sorry this has turned into a rant but I’m genuinely gutted with the game I have loved all my life being hijacked and picked apart by those who have no more interest in football than I do in embroidery. When my local non-league side have become more attractive to me than watching a top flight league game then there is something wrong.....

...either that or I’m turning into Victor Meldrew!

I don’t BELIEVE it...

Sorry.

Quite right, Ciaran!

Chelsea were purchased by Roman Abramovich for £20M from Bates. That’s because Chelsea had £100M+ worth of debt. You can't just conjure up a ridiculous £600M figure from nowhere. As its been said a thousand times before on this site, GP can be redevlped with a capacity of 55,000 with more corporate facilities than Kirkby will ever have for £70-100M.

If our debts are £60M then this will be deducted from the price of the club. So a purchase price of £50-70M for EFC is probably top end.

With regards players, I’m sure we all agree 3-4 top players would make a world of difference (£50-60M).

If I add up the top estimates of those costs = £230M. Which is less then what the Arabs have spent on City already (Club Purchase + Players bought ).

So again, using the whole "Everton FC is a shitty club with no potential" is fundemantally bollocks.

Time we had a new motto. How about:- Votum, Talentum quod Nixus es nusquam vacuus Denique. (Desire, Talent and Effort are f... all without Finance)