Over and above any liking or disliking of particular players or management staff, I’m an Everton fan. That said, I’m feeling a little bit torn right now.
The BBC ran this article a day or two ago: £200m written off ~ lessons the Toffees must learn in pivotal summer for David Moyes & Friedkin Group
And there have also been two or three recent news articles on ToffeeWeb about internal management structures and suchlike.
To be fair, one of them started off as news about the likely appointment of Nick Cox as Technical Director but turned into an absolutely fascinating thread about coaching, etc. Liam Morgan added to my understanding of the game and how youngsters might be best trained to play it, and plenty of other people piled in with their own experiences and interesting perspectives. Thread of the month, totally!
On the one hand, yes, the club has lost a fortune allowing players to leave on a free at the end of their contracts, that’s true.
On the other hand, I am pretty keen on employment rights and, post-Bosman, people who earn their living playing footy have a meaningful say in what goes on, rightly in my opinion.
I know they’re paid silly amounts of money — which makes me wince, to be honest — but that’s not exactly the point. As I understand it, in days gone by, players were basically wage slaves, tied to a contract. Now… they’re not. Good.
I was embarrassed about the way the club moved on several young players (Dobbin, Cannon and Simms, to name but three) for the sake of balancing the books, as selling home-grown talent shows up better on the balance sheet. Pawn to E4, for fuck’s sake!
Godfrey was another who was sold just to awkwardly limbo under the financial bar.
To be clear: I’m not saying that any of those guys was likely to be a top-class performer and I know that accountancy is a thing, realistically, and we have to cover our arse. Still, accountancy is not really why we’re here, is it?
Ultimately, I stand with people who do the work rather than those who profit from those who do the work. As I said, I’m a little bit torn.
UTFW!!!