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Fans Comment
Andrew Bromley


Football is a Business, lets move forward like one
6/5/05

As a recently exiled Evertonian in Canada, it has given a different view on all things Everton, as I no longer have access to the somewhat sensationalist rants of the Liverpool Echo or local radio.

First and most important is that Football for 99% of clubs, with maybe the exception of Chelsea, is a business. The fan is the customer, albeit a very rare type of customer, in the fact that even though they are very unhappy with the product, they will always come back and buy your product religiously. Add in a touch of emotion and nostalgia, and you have the unhappy ‘customers’ venting their spleen over lack of signings, 25 new kits a season, etc etc.

Looking from a purely economic point of view, Everton have got a lot of things absolutely spot on. Most notably, is not paying the astronomical salary’s the likes of Parker or Emre so much wanted. When Beckham signed for Real Madrid on his probable £100k a week salary, a non-football person asked me how can it be justified. Well, quite simply actually. Take David Beckham. Huge celebrity. For Real Madrid, add in the shirt sales, extra fans in the stadium, sponsorships, extra success (although that is debatable), and I guarantee he is making way more than the £100k a week it takes to keep him there, and hence, it's justified! Could the same be said for Scott Parker at £60k a week? I’ll let you make your own mind up

The handing of club merchandise to JJB, a market leader, again spot-on. We all complain about new shirts coming out every season, but I can be sure that the majority of fans will be buying them. Smart business again, Mr Wyness

Of course there is the poor business acumen of Moyes, Wyness, and Kenwright. Most notably the Fortress Sports Fund money, Krøldrup etc. all of which have been talked about extensively so I need not take it further. Although I am intrigued to see how this season's accounts look, when we can't sell a young world-class player...

Which leads me on to my final point: how do we overcome the impending mediocrity which has set into Everton Football Club? Money? Sure, that’s what we need. Rather than rely on some wretched Russian mobster to bail us out (a la Romanov @ Hearts — would we really want ‘investment’ like that?). So how do we get money without selling players? Easy: we build a new stadium.

It's not that easy, I hear you shout. Well, in reality, it is actually that easy. Developers pay for roads, hospitals and schools. Do they sound profitable? Because indeed they are. Here’s how it works: in the form of a Private Finance Initiative in the loosest sense of the term. A developer builds a stadium — not just for football, but for concerts, speedway — even monster trucks, if you like. Add on top a few extras such as hotels, shopping facilities... and you have a venue to rival anything in the Northwest, even probably the whole of the North. The developer pays for everything — a mortgage if you like — whilst Everton pay back the developer over the course, of say, 25 years. 40-60,000 fans every weeks, plus the increase in executive boxes, plus a cut of all concert tickets, and Everton have the basis financially to move the club back where it belongs. Highly ambitious, granted, but are you telling me not one developer would be interested in building such a facility?

Many people will disagree with me, but Wyness has taken this club tentatively forward since the start of his tenure. I’m not sure he has the brilliant business mind required to pull of this Houdini of a stadium build... Here’s hoping!!


Andrew Bromley


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