777 Partners co-founders get FA nod

The rabid nonsense we've had to read about them was spun to suggest there was more than sufficient reason they would not pass the Premier League's Director's and Owner's Test – which I assume this Times story is in reference to.

Seems the utter parasites at Goodison News have lied to us yet again. Although this story seems to have so far eluded their eagle eye…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/potential-new-owners-given-fa-blessing-in-bid-to-buy-everton-f0kvhrc07

Rabid nonsense? Then 777 already have the funds in place to buy Moshiri out? Interesting indeed!

Full disclosure?

I haven't come across Josimar much as a site but is it totally reliable? If those documents are real, then presumably there must be other entities aware of it.

Trying to take over a Premier League club will bring an even higher level of scrutiny to 777 Partners and their dealings so would it not be a strange move if they were really trying to hide their financial shortcomings? Maybe that's me being naive!

Something very whiffy about all of this – any way that the Saudis are involved?

I am very concerned about our club being locked into this spider's web of companies and loans. The punitive interest repayments we will be making forevermore will be a permanent ball and chain. Please let there be an alternative.

So many stories and rumours, believe anything at your own risk… ⚠️

Is that pounds, dollars or rupees?

I've a mate who still quotes their nonsense as fact.

"An increase in the group's assets from $8.36 to $9.14 billion in those twelve months."

Hmmm... by my limited maths skills, that's a growth of $780M. Not too shabby… and isn't the current number somewhere in the range of $10-12B?

Yet the Josimar hacks imply that's not sufficient to cover massive interest payments and an "unrealized change in fair value of financial assets" – whatever that means – despite it being considerably bigger than the losses quoted.

Credit to Josimar, though: they moved on from the 20-year-old drug crime and old old stories from the States to consider things that are little more than a year out of date.

Most of us got excited when Moshiri and Usmanov got involved but look what happened.

Everton have had a succession of managers and players who have been below par and now we are in trouble with the FA to boot.

They seem to grab any snippet they can find, and put a wonderfully sincere worrying spin on it under a suitable clickbait headline. Followed by their deeply concerned commentary that passes for analysis.

At least they provide a link to their source material, which is what I usually check out first to see if there's any meat there. But far too often it's dubious journos, pundits and self-proclaimed financial experts spouting their shite.

I didn't realize he was interested in buying Liverpool though, Rob, so fuck him!!

Seriously though, I can't believe anyone would be really interested in buying Everton, so we should be very thankful for 777 Partners.

The sale is in progress but it hasn't been completed yet.

Some say it won't be completed. Some say they don't want it to be completed. Some say it's collapsed. Some say we're in trouble with the FA (don't think so, Tom @22 — the FA just said that, if the sale goes through, Messers Wander and Pasko of 777 Partners can become directors of Everton).

We're in trouble with the Premier League over a claimed breach of their Profitability and Sustainability Rules, which the club vehemently denies, and has defended itself "robustly" before an independent commission tasked with deciding our fate.

Meanwhile, the Premier League and the Financial Conduct Authority are reviewing the 777 Partners deal and still have to decide if they will approve it. This process could take until the end of the year.

There, I think you're now caught up.

As an aside this is an interesting article about 777, their business model and how they and other multi-club owner businesses are operating.

It gives a good insight into how they (and others) are operating.

Link

I continue to suspect, without any supporting evidence, that MSP is involved with the changeover beyond their known involvement as financing providers.

There's also a very long read in The Athletic on Project Echo – the name given by 777 Partners to their… well, it's all in the title really:

Everton takeover: Project Echo, 777's masterplan for global domination

And if you make it through the very long piece, the comments (and Matt Slater's replies) are well worth a read. But 'tis all behind a paywall… soz.

Sorry, maybe I was just unlucky but I wouldn't trust one of them as far as I could throw them.

All great guys, promises all over the place… until it comes to parting with the cash.

Perhaps they have undisclosed backing from the Middle East because it is equally surprising that Moshiri has apparently not received any other bids, less than 18 months since he suddenly backed away from the Kaminski deal, which appeared to be far more viable.

Under the ownership of 777 Partners, it appears to me that we would suffer a re-run of the dismal Kenwright/Moyes era, a trophy-less mid-table team regularly selling our best players, with no hope whatsoever of returning to the top table.

Speaking on the Where's The Money Gone? podcast with Adrian Goldberg [7 November, 17m 45s], Wyness said: “777, with the leverage they have and the other parts of their business, are probably not going to pass the Financial Conduct Authority tests.“

I have just read the same thing. Good news if true.

On Facebook but I can’t remember the source quoted I will try and find out.

Lets let it sit and hope he's correct as I would consider this to be a good result and a little bit of sunshine at this dark time. He is definitely not a wind-up merchant.

If true, the 6 points will only kick in if we break P&S Rules in the next 2 seasons up to 2027.

Result...if accurate.

Makes you wonder what we actually did "wrong"?

No doubt given the cloak of confidentiality surrounding the whole process...we will never find out.

The Owners' and Directors' Test outlines requirements that would prohibit an individual from becoming an owner or director of a club. These include criminal convictions for a wide range of offences, a ban by a sporting or professional body, or breaches of certain key football regulations, such as match-fixing.

David Dein was in the Directors Box at Goodison last week at the Burnley match. I met him many years ago on the train from London. Very personable guy and knowledgeable. He said he was a big friend of Bill Kenwright.

I think most fans at present would be content with a few dismal years qualifying for Europe and reaching a cup final.

Whoever takes over our club, the current financial rules make the likelihood of a meaningful challenge to the current elite clubs only a remote possibility. Good management will only take us so far before we hit the glass ceiling.

Didn't Dein sell his Arsenal shares to Usmanov?

David Dein sold his shares to Red & White Holdings a company which was owned by Moshiri and Usmanov who appointed him as Chairman of Red & White holdings on his resignation from the Arsenal Board in 2006.

I think he knew Kenwright from his involvement in the Theatre Investment Trust. I met him a few times and as John says a very likeable and knowledgeable man.

Every other club boss will always extol the credibility of their comfiest to them fellow club boss, namely Kenwright, the guy they almost all extracted the max from in football business, to our cost.

The media, who've long since considered us to be like Coventry City as top-league-consistently-just-about survivors, have feasted and thereby promulgated, increasingly deliberately or otherwise, our club's increasing ineptitude throughout Kenwright's ineptitude/avarice.

But on the rare occasion, I do, I have it on a good reliable source who normally gets it right.

A 2-year suspended 6-point deduction, which kicks that into the long grass and, providing we behave, it goes away. Like a suspended prison sentence. I suppose you could say we've been tagged.

And he also understands we may get fined £3M, with no mention of a transfer embargo.

But like all, until there is an announcement and we see it in black and white, it's not real.

Once they get this out of the way, I suppose the football authorities can focus on Manchester City and those 115 offences? Although that brings UEFA into the equation with FFP, not just the Premier League’s P&S Rules. Let's watch that space as the Premier League will be like a rabbit in the headlights trying to deal with City.

Meanwhile in the Big Brother Goodison House, 777, Dein, other interested parties from the US and India. It's all getting a bit uncertain as seemingly (and I'm guessing), there is potentially a bit of jostling going on for the rights to the new Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

Anyway, our more immediate concern is playing what is always a tricky fixture at Palace on Saturday.

As for Dein, I also feel I am in the Big Brother House, because the possible permutations are endless. Everyone of them will turn up on ToffeeWeb.

If that is indeed the commission's verdict, then it's a pretty good one. Talk of an imminent 12-point deduction always seemed like scaremongering to me but I thought there was a chance we might get a transfer embargo.

She was a lot chattier than him, and also a lot smaller.

Big news of the day there for you.

Let's be honest here John, that should be the Moyes - Kenwright years versus the Moshiri - Kenwright years.

These sanctions above do not seem too intolerable to me. Any resurgence by the club will just be delayed but I know we have the steel to rise to the challenge.

The Kenwright/Moyes years gave us a 4th place in the Premier League with a negative goal difference, a feeble FA Cup Final defeat, and a last 16 in the Europa League — failure in my book.

Moshiri was undoubtedly responsible for the appointment of a succession of underperforming managers but, if he had restructured the board with a competent chairman and CEO, the story may have been very different.

At least Moshiri will leave us with a superb new riverside stadium, 20 years after the opportunity to build one at King's Dock was spurned.

Kenwright would have happily led us to a second-rate stadium with a large car park next to Tesco in Kirkby.

We should sue Leeds, Leicester and Burnley for defamation… say £3 million?

If memory serves we were/are about £420M or thereabouts in debt, or £315M above the P&S allowance over a 3-year period, so how do we reduce this to stay within allowed parameters for the next 2 years?

They can't be saying there is no transgression or there would be no penalty or is it that we must not trade into further debt over the next 2 years which, barring something exceptional would seem to be something of a transfer embargo as a sell to buy policy might not do anything to reduce the overall debt.

Or there is more to come than just this rumour?

Debt is how much you have borrowed, and therefore how much you owe your creditors. The P&S Rules make no restrictions on debt. They do not apply to debt directly.

Loss is how much money you lose (Income minus Expenditure), where expenditure includes the cost of borrowing. The allowable loss each year of the last three is limited by P&S Rules (but with a host of exceptions for allowable costs).

Covid comes into it too.

"Or there is more to come than just this rumour?"

Yes, of course. As Anthony says, there is the real findings of the commission still to come, the real decision on our penalty. Let's wait for that, shall we?

"or £315M above the P&S allowance over a 3-year period, "

I assume you are quoting Everton's actual overall losses not all of which will count towards P&S limits. Expenditure on youth and women's football as well as Covid expenses are excluded from the P&S calculation.

As far as I am aware Everton's actual P&S figures have never been made public.

"As far as I am aware Everton's actual P&S figures have never been made public."

I thought one of Paul Quinn's articles took a stab at it, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

I'd like to think that a careful study of the Accounts for those years should give some idea but, as you say, the numbers have not been made public and some of the allowances claimed for Covid (loss of player value, etc) may be contentious and/or hidden.

He makes a point of saying that a fair bit of it is educated guesswork and, even updating his numbers with a slightly better 21-22 loss than he forecast his work indicates we have a prima-facie 3 year P&S position of - £159M which is just the £55M in excess of the rule!

Only the Club, the Premier League and the Commission know the true figures. These actual figures will not be revealed, even when the results of the Commission are announced.

As far as I'm aware the publicly available accounts don't provide sufficient information to enable anyone, no matter how much time they invested, to arrive at our likely P&S figure.

As you point out Covid expenditure is hidden amongst other normal day-to-day expenses. Similarly expenditure on youth and women's football isn't shown separately either.

Not knocking it but Paul's article was simply an educated guess.

This one will surely be attracting a lot of attention, though, given high visibility and the level of scrutiny demanded by the relegated clubs who have supposedly threatened to sue. And if the penalty is not too harsh, they are going to be frothing at the mouth, demanding a full explanation.

Was that ToffeeWeb Danny? We already knew about that as it had been posted on here earlier.

Thanks for sharing. It certainly got plenty of us talking and thinking about what it might look like…

But if someone told me some nugget like that well before it hits the streets, I couldn't stop myself asking "And exactly how do you know this???"

Depending on the reply: "I saw the draft document", "I'm sleeping with the guy who's been shagging the KC from the hearing", or the dreaded "Friend of a friend", that reply might just factor in on the veracity scales? Just sayin'.

[Perhaps this is why nobody ever tells me stuff like this!]

‘Premier League clubs to vote on banning loans between associated parties for January window. If approved, potential deals like Ruben Neves from Al Hilal to Newcastle will be blocked. Temporary measure until longer-term solution agreed ‘

It may adversely affect us if 777 Partners take us over.

I don't post stuff like that unless I have been given decent information, even though that is never guaranteed.

So no. Not from ToffeeWeb. Family and external media sources.

Fair enough but somebody else has suggested that we might be about £59M above P&S allowances and that, of the overall debt, we need only show the interest and the part of the debt to be repaid in that year.

So is it as simple as moving on those players on £70k pw and more and either sell one of our better players or borrow a further £70M, assuming we can meet the never-never terms without going fully down the road to ruin?

Whichever it is, an independent commission hasn't been appointed because all is well or the assistance of the Premier League has ensured Everton are within regulations.

Yes, the debt servicing costs go onto the Profit & Loss calculation. I've seen various estimates of what these are and that £59M number may be for the current season, which is not (yet!) the subject of a P&S breach charge.

For comparison, the amounts given in the accounts for 'Interest payable and similar charges' was £10.473M in 2021-22, £9.043M in 2020-21, and £8,348M in 2019-20.

I doubt if the P&S breach can be rectified now by selling players, if that's what you are suggesting, although that obviously contributes to the P&S calculations going forward. I suspect what was considered by the independent commission was a lot more complicated, but Everton's cooperation with the Premier League for 2 years to try and avoid exactly this scenario should, you would hope, mean something?

The resignation of the auditor in conjunction with the report of the replacement auditor doing the damage. I did originally think there was a difference on figures, but on reflection, I do not think that was the case.

The Auditor Report simply blindsided the Premier League. They then pushed the independent commission into the long grass of October to allow more time to sort things out.

The 777 Partners agreement could be part of getting Everton over the line. After the commission findings, they may be no longer needed and other parties will come into the framework.

One thing we do not know is the exact terms of the 777 Partners agreement. I would hazard a guess that Everton are not that far out on the required figures as the Premier League had found in their original statement and that the sanctions will be proportionate with that.

But the Premier League will have to be seen to do something, even if the figures were not that far out originally.

While I absolutely understand why you are sceptical about the rumours circulating about the outcome of the commission's decision, the other week, Simon Jordan stated publicly that he said the Premier League's evidence in the first week was, in his words, very weak… but stronger in the second week.

So how did he know that? Because, like all meetings that are supposed to be private somehow find their way into the public domain long before the decision is made public.

So, while I don't know if what Danny posted is true or not, but Danny given his background doesn't seem the sort of guy that would spread a rumour unless he trusted where the information had come from.

Just like the Covid commission that is going on now, things that were said at the time and reported on, but which were denied by every Conservative Minister, such as the statement that Johnson said "Let the bodies pile high" rather than have another lockdown. We now know from officials inside Number 10 that he did say that.