FAN ARTICLES
Spurred on to Compare

"I am personally delighted that we have been able to put forward a viable option which we know to be the fans' favourite - remaining at the club's spiritual home." Who said that?
No sadly it?s not some cosy silver haired parochial Northern chairman giving some media friendly sound bite about how would it be unthinkable to displace one of the stalwarts of the English game. It is Daniel Levy chairman of Spurs and hard- nosed businessman who at least realises one thing that BK doesn?t ? don?t piss off your core supporters.
How did they do this? "We have spent 5 years buying and taking options over property around the current stadium site to enable us to either develop locally or to gain the critical mass to achieve a substantial site sale as a contribution to a relocation."
Surprise, surprise they had some kind of medium to long term business strategy that had wait for it alternatives!! They clearly had a few plans B, C and D unlike a certain club we could mention.
We can laugh if we want at Spurs on the pitch but at least off it their chairman runs the club with some business savvy. The problem with us is err Bill Kenwright who is probably a nice bloke, a good Blue if a bit tiresome but someone totally unsuited to running a football club. Those of you who state that well its North London not North Liverpool, its Haringey FFS not frigging Mayfair!
I have the pleasure of visiting this London Borough on a fairly frequent basis and it?s more run down and depressed than much of Walton and twice as scary. I am not knocking the area of Haringey just trying to rebut those who would state that a similar development could not take place in L4 because of socio- economic deprivation and the attendant problems it can bring.
What?s Spurs take on their role in the Community? ?But more than anything, Spurs have played an integral role in giving a sense of identity to the area it calls home. Tottenham would not be Tottenham without its football club. We have been working extremely hard to regenerate the Tottenham area, which suffered so much from industrial decline. Real progress is being made, and it is extremely pleasing that Spurs has demonstrated that they share our commitment to this continuing regeneration.?
I am sure this is Levy bullshitting to an extent but I think the case for Everton remaining part of the Community of Walton is even stronger. We need some new leadership at this club and fast, someone with financial clout, business acumen and the ability to work with the City Council not fuck up opportunities like the Kings Dock.
The Reebok stadium sums it up for me a soulless ground where soulless football is played. This is the future Bill Kenwright is leading us to.
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I will of course stand corrected, but take it that ALL of us (from Tony to Doddy and all shades in between) agree that we would like to be doing exactly what Spurs are doing. Building a spanking new ground right in the community where we’ve been historically located for a decade. Anyone disagree?
I also (perhaps more riskily) take it that at least all informed Toffeewebbers agree that, at least as things currently stand, we simply cannot afford to do this. Spurs have already been buying up property for years because they can afford to do so. We haven’t because we can’t. They will be spending surely in excess of £200M to do what they are talking about. We don’t have that kind of money. It is not actually a matter of will, but a matter of money. Anyone disagree with this?
Well, I suspect the debate might now mainly evolve around who is most to blame for our current state of affairs, how different things might have been with different owners, and how different people evaluate the not very good options that currently (absent a rich new owner) we are faced with. Given that we don’t apparently have Tottenham’s rather good option.
But it might for once be helpful to start from the place that we all want basically the same thing, and all recognise that currently we can’t afford it.
Don?t say ?can?t do it? anymore than you say ?can?t win the next game?.
We should not be pinning our hopes on either one-off handouts or mythical sugardaddies.
The other realistic options are partnerships with an events organisation [like the Kings Dock proposal] and/or with another club [i.e. a Joint stadium]. The problem with Kirkby is it?s the worst of all worlds: undeliverable, lacking in long-term ambition and unsustainable.
There is also no comment on the Spurs story about what they will do whilst building the stadium, they will have to move out temporarily to allow the build, which will cost enough in rental and missed revenue?
If this is the case why dosn?t the club put forward some plans for an inner city stadium which we can all be proud of, with LCC going on about how they don?t want everton to leave the city they can't refuse it. Then BK can sell up to his billlionare, we get a stadium to be proud of and all the investment needed that BK and DM have been harping on about.
I understand this is speculation but we keep hearing about how DK getting passed will open the floodgates to new investement, so why not a Liverpool site or even a redeveloped Goodison.
Will our regular home match attendance really grow to a sustained substantially 50% plus (or even ANY significant %) increase upon moving to a new retail park stadium in Kirkby? Unless the Club are sure of this then it is surely better to just say no to Kirkby.
Funny though!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU9bUfa_vF4
1) If Spurs have been buying commercial property around their ground for the last 5 years then with the markets like they are they just lost a fortune of their balance sheet - commercial property having gone down the pan (so while Levy is pulling a PR stunt claiming clever planning he's probably wasted millions that could have gone on players)
2) Spurs can charge their season ticket holders twice what Everton charge theirs on account of being in London (and therefore have more to spend on stadium development and can borrow more to build a stadium as it will provide more income per seat), which matters because it means they can develop without having to rely on Tesco?s money and therefore can build where they want.
3) The Reebok may be soulless but Bolton are much better off in terms of league position now than before they built it.
4) Nothing will happen on the sale until the DK public enquiry has closed because it will affect the value of the club hugely.
5) Our chances of being bought out by a foreign investor have gone up plenty lately as the pound has plummeted against other currencies making us cheaper to buy... that's of course if anyone out there has any money to buy football clubs with...
25 thousand on a season ticket waiting list also brings into sharp focus the gulf in comparability of the fan base between the two clubs.
Why the difference? Poorer stadium? Smaller fanbase? Less affluent fanbase? Surely not success over the last 30 years?
Starting from where we are right now as Trevor Skempton suggests, we need a radically extended footprint. LCC say it will be ’sympathetic’ so in the event of the collapse of the Kirkby option hopefully that will emerge as a possibility. Unfortunately we still keep coming back to that bugbear of redevelopment - money.
I agree money is still the bugbear. However surely it was BK?s job to develop more than one potential strategy i.e. The Kirkby option and develop alternative streams of finance. Whats annoying me, is all these cock-up have happened on this guys watch and until recently he has been like ?teflon Bill? no shit sticks to him. He gets away with Blue murder because he offers us some platitudes about his undying love for the club. I would personally prefer a mute chairman who delivered on the business end of running a football club.
The truth is its a hobby for him and his true interests lay elsewhere. This would not be so terrible if he was not potless.
Time for that moronic chant "time to go, time to go, fuck off, trouble it was time for him to go long ago We all bought the misty eyed sentiment he pushed whilst other clubs were getting their act together off the pitch. I am afraid his competence is in question.
I couldn't agree more.
Forget stadiums or building on what we?ve achieved so far because this board led by Kenwright is deceitful, incompetent and selfish.
And we won't see progress until they ALL go.
All this he?s one of us BS wears thin when you look through the masquerade.
I personally don’t know any KEIOC members so I would not presume to call them morons anymore than I would label those who voted for DK are morons. To try and validate your view of the vote of Aug 2007 as somehow representative of Evertonians opinions of DK is a little misleading. The club first of all sold us a very distorted view of what DK would bring us, even they now conceed this. Secondly the vote excluded many match going Blues who for whatever reason do not buy or have stopped buying a season ticket so again I dont think it is accurate picture. Finally over 10,000 voted no and 10,000 didnt vote at all.
Please don’t trumpet the democracy of EFC too loudly this is the club that attempted to prosecute some of its own supporters. It was a nod to democracy Damien I will grant you that giving us a vote, but in a democratic referendum both sides of the argument are normally allowed to put their case. Face the truth Damien it was a sham and the whole DK marketing strategy has been shown to be riddled with errors and accounting mechanisms that would make Bear Stearns and Northern Rock look effective.
Damien, Bill would like to thank you for your half-hearted support.
Like many BK supporters, you blame others for his piss-poor leadership. LCC worked with him on the Kings dock proposal and the only reason the club is not on the waterfront is because Bill did not live up to his half of the bargain. It's not up to LCC to solve the club's stadium problem, it is BK?s.
George Meehan, leader of Haringey Council, added: "We have always regarded Spurs as one of Haringey?s prime assets. They bring major economic benefits to our borough and carry out some excellent community work through the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation."
Here we see the full backing of the local council of which we have had none or very little maybe this is because of the fiasco over Kings Dock I guess only LCC know that.
Paul Gregg was prepared to put up the money but Billy Bullshit was not prepared to let go of his train set. There then followed the Fortress Sorts Fund debacle. Remember that? It was when Billy Bullshit constantly assured all and sundry that the money from the Fortress Sports Fund was imminent.
Watch this space!
Sadly we are stuck with a clueless oaf who?s constant trump card is "What do I know? I?m a fan just like all of yous."
Pathetic!!! But worst of all Evertonians are allowing this to happen and let this fool get away with it all the time. Very sad.
I actually agree with you that the club could have been better managed on the commercial side over the last few years. But, taking seriously the Spurs comparison which after all started this particular thread, do you think that Kenwright could have turned Everton into a club that could have spent the amount that Spurs has spent on players, could have spent £50M simply on buying up property in Haringey, and could have the financial resources to be seriously comtemplating spending £200M+ on a brand new stadium? If so, how would this have happened?
I think Everton’s problems in comparison to Spurs run a lot deeper than the failings of one man, and are a lot more complicated and harder to solve than could be achieved simply by replacing him with someone a bit more commercially savvy.
In recent times, Everton and Spurs have very similar records ? both being members of the ?Premier League Super Seven? ? those clubs who have played in every season of the "Sky League's" existence (although Everton are the least successful of these seven!) viz:-
Everton P620 W211 D167 L242 F758 A808 Pts800
Spurs P620 W223 D165 L232 F839 A847 Pts834
In the "Every team that?s ever been in the Premier table", Spurs stand in 7th place whilst we are 9th. Interestingly, two clubs who have spent time out of the top tier are above us ? Newcastle,6th with 872points from 578 games and Blackburn, 8th with 805 from only 544 games.
Off the field there can be little doubt that Spurs have maintained a far superior infrastructure, aided no doubt by the financial know-how of ?owner? Joe Lewis and his asute (although not in football matters!) lieutenant Daniel Levy.
Consequently, I?m not repeating any of the stuff I was posting over the summer.
(And Neil Pearse describing those who disagree with his guesswork - fact: that?s what it is - as being ?ill-informed?, won?t lure me in today.)
What does (genuinely) fascinate me though, is that apparently there are people out there still prepared to believe and/or back... ANYTHING proposed by Kenwright.
It baffles and fascinates me there are people who will still say things like "Well according to Kenwright...." or "Bill Kenwright has said he won?t be...."
I have thought about this, considered it, for flip?s sake even pondered it. The most rational, logical conclusion I can come up with is this. There is a new drug called ?bleevmee-BL-U? (or something) that has been invented by a team of mad scientists working for Kenwright and this drug is being added to Chang before home games.
Daft?
Well we can only guess how and why stuff works the way it does at the People?s (ie: major shareholders') club, but here is something I KNOW about NON-Everton stuff. If you dealt with a builder (or a bank manager or a priest or a butler or...) and you had caught this person, banged-to-rights, (100%!) bullshitting you (on numerous occasions), you would VERY soon stop believing him/her when they made you promises regarding..... anyfuckingthing.
You would, very soon, have nothing to do with this person and when people asked you why, you would say (understanably) something like, "I fucked him off ? he was one spoofing twat."
Question ? why does OUR bullshitting bum get a ?pass??
Coz he?s a ?good blue??
For - fucks - sake!
Unfortunately, the way Everton is structured, Kenwright has almost dictator status and until his stranglehold on the club is released we will always be at the bottom end of the scale for all aspects like transfers, commercial activities, profile etc.
He has been on the board since the early 90s and has been running the show since Gregg went so the buck stops with him Neil, end of story. Don?t make excuses for his smokescreens, ineptness and his inability to bring money into the club. It?s simply not good enough.
Kirkby is an absolute joke. No other big club would consider doing what we are proposing to do (leave its roots) and neither would their supporters!!
He seems to relish in the "one of us" status afforded him but forgetting all the lies he has presided over taking EFC to record debts and consistent loss making operations with no marketing strategy and no business plan for the future.
It speaks volumes for the man that he?s had 4 chief execs and back-stabbed former friends and supporters of his.
As a business consultant you well know that the man at the top has to take the blame for the culture and ethos of his operations and in this case it is well warranted as the man tries to run the club as the "Bill Kenwright show" from his London office and while that may work for his theatre productions it does not work for EFC.
It depends when Spurs intend to start building their new stadium. If it?s after 2012 they will be able to use one of the purpose built Olympic stadiums that have already been suggested as a new ground for a number of London clubs. So, not only does the London area get a ludicrously expensive Wembley but it?s clubs get the chance of a cut price stadium. Bit like City did.....
Even Maine Road (though a hotch potch) was infastrucurally far, far more modern than Goodison. There are numerous examples of this, another being them across the Park. Anfield is actually a pretty damn modern stadium and they can?t wait to up sticks. What we have been playing at with ground development in the last 20 years I honestly don?t know.
Alternatively, if Abbott & Costello can’t come up with the scratch for Stanley Park, twist LCC’s collective elbow and drive for a communal stadium. I know, I know. But Liverpool isn’t London. Everton aren’t Spurs, and Liverpool, for that matter, aren’t Arsenal. It works for Milan, Ac and Internazionale.
Ed, I too looked with envy this week at the way Spurs have planned a move, the commitment shown to the community and supporters, and their foresight in staying close to their spiritual and physical home. It shows the commercial savvy and leadership we do not have.
Let's be a bit cruel for a second and dismiss sentimental views of Bill. When times are good and the team are successful he is happy to take the kudos that goes with that success. But the flip side, the commercial reality, is that as the commercial head of the club, the largest shareholder and the self acclaimed saviour,
If it is deemed that the club has fallen short off the pitch it is his responsibility.
If the club is under financed or makes poor financial judgements, it is his responsibility.
If he makes poor appointments for CEO?s who stuff it up or who aren?t allowed to make good financial decisions, it's his responsibility.
So... point being that in a real commercial world, BK would be shown the door for incompetency, irrespective of how many people like him.
But that's in a real world. Everton FC have somehow become a theatrical agency and what we are subjected to from BK is not good commercial sense, its pantomine.
"On No it isn?t" ? goes up the cry...
Sorry Christine too, but what the Spurs comparison mostly shows is not a difference in vision, but the difference that having lots more money makes. Vision really isn’t as hard as you might imagine if you can idly splash out £50M on Bent and Pavlyuchenko and Prince-Boateng and Bale, and another £50M on properties around White Hart Lane (leaving £200M+ left to actually build a brand new ground).
Wouldn't you think they would realize that building a new stadium close the old one makes no sense? Wouldn't you think they would see the brilliant opportunity offered by moving to a cement shopping center several miles away? Wouldn't you think they would have learned from the mistakes made by Newcastle, Manchester United, Arsenal and so many other clubs who foolishly believed there was some value to retaining a link to the neighborhood?
Ah me, what a difficult lesson it will be for them when they see how Everton prospers in the Tescodome in Nowheresville, Lancs. By then it will be too late for them, poor luvs. Thank God we have better business minds working on our behalf.
Crowds are declining, Everton DO NOT and have never had the fan base to warrant a 50k capacity stadium... So (and I have said this before) build a second tier at the Park End; reprofile the Bullens and Gwladys St to single deckers to open up larger concourses; Sort out the main stand; re-roof.
I bet there will be 40k+ there. The capacity will cope with the fans. If there is a sudden surge in support - charge them!
If success should ever come, then either redevelop the old lady properly, or find a descent inner city site.
In one in twelve of the seasons since the foundation of the Football League, Everton have had the highest average attendances. They are one of only five English clubs who have ever averaged more than 50,000 in home games across a season [the others being Man Utd, Spurs, Newcastle and Arsenal] ? they have done it twice while I?ve been a supporter.
We must not settle for anything but the best. We need to be ambitious AND hang on to our history.
If I had to name just one reason why I despise Kenwright (God knows I could list 20), it is because he always plays the pauper card with his "it?s not my fault I?m not a multi-millionaire" as if that is the reason plenty of us hate him; it?s not the reason. I don?t hate him for that, I hate him for the way in which his poor housekeeping has squandered the financial windfall of TV money since the early ?90s in such a way the only way he can now deliver a new stadium is to move us to Kirkby to play in a supermarket carpark.
And it sometimes pisses me off that people are fixing all their energy on the bads ? Spurs are gonna be calling their new ground the Mansion stadium, or whichever corporate bids the most, and I reckon this site would crash with the number of posts if we sold out naming rights, which as I understand isn?t part of DK (correct me if I?m wrong!).
FFS half of you will be the missing 8000 from Saturday, sitting on here pissing and moaning instead of getting behind the lads and at least making a point for staying at our spiritual home ? Goodison?s been dead this season so perhaps it?s best to move on if it helps attract investment, or we could stay at our home like Leeds, Notts Forest, etc. and have a bunch of ?happy? blues filling Goodison in 2020 to play Yeovil (no disrespect to Yeovil!)
Unfortunately the issue has always been where do you start throwing money at a stadium on a footprint that is too small and - flattening Goodison Road aside - will need to be moved.
Secondly if millions had been spent over the last 15 years, where would that leave the team? At what point over the last 15 years or more would you say we could have afforded to divert money from a team that desperately needed support throughout this time?
The club have constantly had to ’firefight’ to stay afloat in the top league - there simply was no option of spending the Sky riches on bricks and mortar when the team sank to the lower reaches of the league year on year.
In all the spurs plan is remarkably better than Kirkby. Their spending and acumen is clearly higher than ours, despite similar match day attendance. We can argue to have a larger fan base, but no one could argue we have a smaller one. Why then can spurs afford to acquire so much land, given that they are dealing in london prices and we are dealing with, well, Walton. It comes down to business management. They have some - it aint the worlds best, but its sufficient to run a football club. We have a failed ex-coronation street actor who is a blue. Forgive me for wanting to see Blue’s on the terraces and business managers in the boardroom. Crickey if it was the other way around. Oh..
The whole thrust of my argument is that a club as big as Everton needs appropriate leadership and management and we haven?t had that. Kenwright has admitted himself that he lacks the requisite business skills as well as finance to do this. It is excuse after excuse over a very long period of time that has worn people?s patience. I really wanted to believe this seemingly passionate Evertonian was going to deliver the goods but he hasn?t. I remember him speaking after the Wimbledon game, about the Kings Dock, about Rooney not going, about Fortress Sports funding, watch this space etc etc . It is all a little like Peter and the Wolf most of us simply don?t believe him anymore and with damn good reason.
http://www.espnstar.com/opinion/columnists/column/item56239/
It was 1986 and we had a superb team, admittedly unable to play in Europe, but nevertheless a top Club and this stand let the whole stadium down.
I got a reply saying that ’ such massive redevelopment’ was ’totally out of the question’ due to ’fears’ of putting the Club in financial trouble. I was basically told to piss off and dismissed as a dreamer who wanted to risk financial suicide.
3 years later Hillsborough happened and all Clubs began redeveloping their stadiums and many have been totally transformed. However all EFC did was produce a picture of a 2 tier new Park End in April1991. By then the team was poor, crowds were down, but Sky was on the horizon.
Late 1993 and it was announced the Park End was to be rebuilt. Not so much dreaming now as a blindingly obvious necessity.... funny how it all changed in just 7 years eh? Sadly, though, the 2 tier stand to match the and meet up with the Bullens road ( likely capacity around 10,000, was shelved for the Oldham-esque structure holding only 6,000 you see today. It cost the club £2m to build, but £1.2m came from a Football Trust grant. Only £800k to build a stand!!! Cheapjack.
And to this day, that’s pretty much all they have done since the early seventies apart from the seats which they HAD to do.
Small minded, conservative, visionless twats have run this Club for too long. They only didn’t sack Kendall in 1983 or Moyes in 2005 because they couldn’t afford it... and then got lucky.... before anybody pipes up with cries of ’ they haven’t rushed into anything and it’s just as well.’
I hope we get taken over by somebody with some vision, some real ambition and balls who builds an iconic stadium in the inner city close to Goodison and wants the team to win the Champions League. Tht might be an unrealistic dream, but can we really do any worse than the ’little men’ who have wasted the opportunity that is EFC for so long?
Spurs has the backing of the Jewish business community which is probably one of the most professional and profitable if not in the UK maybe the world. The business module and fan base is far superior to that of EFC, probably bigger than their neighbors Arsenal.
EFC has had to sell local land, training grounds just to buy the odd player to keep the fan base happy, it?s not a fair comparison at all. I have said it all along that BK biggest failing is he isn?t a billionaire, if we can all accept that then we move on to two options available to us;- 1) New owner comes in with a sack of money 2) We take the largest handout available to our financial position.
In my mind we have and are exploring both options, unless anybody can arrange to pop a rabbit out of the empty hat then accept EFC financially are bottom 6 Premiership or even Championship grade at best. I don?t like that fact either; the truth is a lot of fans seem unable to accept we are no longer a big club. COYB
Everton FC have tried to take a fast way out of this and in doing so have lost silly amounts of money doing it which was obvious from the moment that they announced "there is no plan B".
How come every other team manages to find a local location (even teams in a place as built-up as London) and Everton simply cannot? Because Everton can?t be arsed, we won?t take risks and we take no for an answer. Not to mention that various people have probably been offered a nice little bonus for going along with Tesco.
Even Liverpool FC bought local property around Anfield, that?s why so many houses around there are boarded up.
I?m sick of Everton not taking chances and doing as they are told at all the wrong times, it just makes us look like no-marks.
I agree, business management is probably one of our weakest points and Kenwright is at the centre of that for the last 5 years, with conservative boards before that as long as I can remember. The club have fallen far behind our competitors albeit for reasons that were made year on year for what seemed like the right reasons ? Premier League survival being one of those.
I do think Kenwright has grasped a lot of that and many changes have taken place over the last 4 years with significant success on and off the field. However, we still remain far behind and need a new structure to generate more money, new businesses and not least of all offer far more to fans on matchday in the hope more will come who will spend more.
Building stand by stand is not as simple as it sounds ? the ground is at the edge of the land it occupies and to build a stadium with the space and facilities we want we need a footprint roughly twice the size we have now ? the pitch has to move sideways at the very least.
This is at the heart of why Spurs can generate more money on matchday ? they are able to charge far more than us because what they offer is far superior to what we offer. I have been lucky enough to be corporately entertained at both stadiums and, believe me, there is no comparison.
The footprint of Goodison doesn?t need to be enlarged to anything like the extent you suggest, to achieve the ultimate stadium potential. A strip is needed behind the Bullens Road Stand and a wedge of land is needed taking in the businesses on Goodison Road and a small number of houses behind them towards Spellow Lane, all of which can be replaced within the development.
We should be careful not to exaggerate the requirements; they are very specific and we shouldn?t argue for any more Compulsory Purchases than is strictly necessary. No more and no less [Details will be provided to the Kirkby Inquiry]. Rebuilding Goodison in stages whilst retaining the basic structure of the two Leitch stands [and the Church] is perfectly practicable and affordable, and could give us one of the finest and most atmospheric club grounds in the World.
And, as the first step, rather than employing EFC?s current impoverished financial status as an excuse as you have in your response to Christine Foster (??but what the Spurs comparison mostly shows is not a difference in vision, but the difference that having lots more money makes.?), you, by definition, have to identify the reason why we don?t have the money. And the reason for this is simple. If, as a business consultant you use your business consulting network effectively, you will be able to gain validated marketplace insights which will lead you to quickly discover that Bill Kenwright?s willingness to ?sell? EFC comes with a number of restrictive conditions ? all of which are known within British investment circles and all of which focus on Mr Kenwright retaining a modicum of control over what has become known as ?his train set?. And no major investor is going to tempt fate by playing in that game.
So, in answer to the questions you posed to Jay Campbell (??do you think that Kenwright could have turned Everton into a club that could have spent the amount that Spurs has spent on players, could have spent £50M simply on buying up property in Haringey, and could have the financial resources to be seriously contemplating spending £200M+ on a brand new stadium? If so, how would this have happened??) the answer is simple and any business consultant worth his salt would know this.
Bill Kenwright knew his limitations when he took over this club from Peter Johnson and he should have been looking for someone else with far more business acumen and far more clout in National and International business and financial circles to take over the club from him.
Equally, you could have reframed your key question and asked Jay ?Could Bill Kenwright have turned Everton into a financially viable entity capable of attracting responsible investment and achieving success both as a commercial enterprise and as a football club?? and the answer would be the same.
The fact that he doggedly hung onto the club and repelled all comers and, along the way, alienated a number of his own inner circle of friends is the most damning piece of evidence against him. It is also the single reason that Everton is in trouble on pretty well all fronts and faces a long and exhausting battle to recover lost ground, if it ever can. I do however agree with you that there are no simple or easy fixes and that, even if Mr Kenwright does sell (instead of merely talking sale and investment as he has done ad nauseam for the past three years ? and somewhat mysteriously ? totally without success) the mess he has allowed to be created around EFC, largely by poor executive appointments, will present more challenges to the incoming owners. And this includes trying to re-establish Everton?s position as an attractive and marketable commercial and footballing enterprise.
So, rather than taking an emotive approach that blinds you to the reality, Neil, follow your own advice and adopt a constructive and detached business analysis approach and you will see the wood for the trees and, unfortunately for you, presenting as a seemingly strong supporter of Bill Kenwright, you will quickly establish the fact that, based on the available evidence (gained from available official documents, the marketplace and records, as distinct from rumour and innuendo or any deep-seated dislike of Mr Kenwright), that he is, in fact, culpable and therefore responsible for the problems that are bedeviling EFC at the moment. This is not an attack on his person, merely his serious corporate management shortcomings.
And he has the power to start the healing process by doing what he has been saying he will do and selling the Club. Many Evertonians who are fed up with Mr Kenwright?s empty words (?seeking investment 24/7?) and his equally empty actions (eg the fraudulent Fortress Funds affair) simply want him to do this one thing for the Everton he proclaims to love dearly, a claim I?ve no doubt is true.
Alan Willo, What else do us "anti-DK" people have to compare DK against? If not the solutions being put together by other clubs (more wealthy or not).
Should our motto be "Tesco stadium is shit, but re-assuringly cheap!"?
Basically, I believe that if there is any really major thing that Kenwright should be faulted with, it is not selling the club to someone rich with the club’s interests at heart. I have argued with many on this site because, GIVEN THE MONEY THAT WE HAVE (please note the emphasis!), I think Kenwright has done a decent (no more) job, and also that Kirkby represents a good deal for the club (GIVEN THE MONEY THAT WE HAVE); and, anyway, we cannot afford anything else.
I argued at least two years ago that Kenwright needed to sell the club to someone with more money. Everton is structurally unable to generate Spurs like money without very major new investment (requiring at the least a new ground, whether on the current site or elsewhere).
You lay the blame squarely at Kenwright’s door for not selling the club, and appear to have evidence that he has in effect been blocking the sale. You may be right, I do not know. I would certainly be interested in the evidence! As I and others have also argued though, it is also curious that no one in all these years has publically come forward to put pressure on Kenwright to sell on appropriate terms. He could never have blocked that, and it would surely have forced his hand. I wonder what your explanation of this is.
Further to this, I enquired as to the strategy behind these bids and was advised that in not having complied ? or reportedly not having shown any intention to comply ? with the buyers? fundamental requirement that he cede all control and depart the Club, both tentative offers were withdrawn. I obtained this information from credible investment brokers working in the major investments sector, including one who has since assisted one of the bidders with other major business investments across the UK.
In relation to the issue of why no other offers had been formally made by prospective buyers since that time, the response was that marketplace knowledge of Mr Kenwright?s continued reluctance to accede to the requirement to depart the club was well documented and had deterred further bids for a takeover of the club when other clubs seemed more open to reasonable offers. It had also made the club an unattractive target for any major investment outside of Mr Kenwright?s immediate network.
Adding to this ?unattractiveness? is the information that can be gleaned from the Club?s Annual Reports and the various operational reports that underpin this. In summary, our debt has soared and, apart from obtaining loans against future income, we have no other viable sources of funds supply apart from membership sales and match day takings. As for the strategy of borrowing against future income, as a short term strategy it is viable but as a long term strategy that is subject to repeated visitations by the business (as in Everton?s case for the past four years) it is a high risk and demonstrably unsustainable activity which does nothing to increase the commercial value of the club, let alone sustainably improve the cash flows situation.
As for Mr Kenwright?s capacity to block any takeover bid, he is the majority shareholder of the Club and can effectively block any bid he sees fit to. And if I were to hypothesise into the future, I would suggest that the only way he could be forced into selling, apart from overwhelming supporter dissatisfaction and seriously falling attendances and membership sales, would either be for his immediate creditors to call up his debts or for some opportunistic individual or organisation with the necessary funds to buy up his debts at a discounted rate and then call them in.
And, as the latter option tends to be the preferred modus operandi of serial company asset strippers (also known as ?corporate jackals?), I wouldn?t want this happen to us as we would be left with the shell of a once great club and little else.
I?m sure you will agree that if either of these strategies were employed to ?get rid? of Mr Kenwright, it would be a sad day for both the man and the club. All of which leaves me wondering why he doesn?t simply sell up and move on as he cannot continue to scrape up funds here and there and continue trading on anticipated future income for much longer.
Let me start by fully agreeing with your final statement that, in respect to Kenwright, "he cannot continue to scrape up funds here and there and continue trading on anticipated future income for much longer". My view has always been that the club has been in a structurally unsustainable position without major new investment. And indeed the major factor behind my support for the Kirkby project has been the hope that it would unlock that investment.
I also believe that the only way of getting that level of investment was to get a new OWNER - i.e. somebody who will want to control the club themselves. It is obvious that nobody would pump large sums of money into a business they did not control.
If what you say is true then, at least until now, Kenwright has not been willing to countenance such a possibility. I unreservedly condemn him if he has been taking that position, which is not in the interests of the club. He is doing the club a service if he vets potential new owner as not being the kind of ’corporate jackals’ you refer to. But not at all if he is simply blocking all comers.
I still wonder why no one who really wanted to buy the club has ’gone public’ to put pressure on Kenwright to sell (accepting of course as you say that in the end he can block anything). However, I acknowledge that if previously he has made it very clear in investment circles that he was not willing to cede control, then that would certainly have deterred any but the most determined new owners.
In joining you in wondering "why he doesn’t simply sell up and move on", my speculation has always been that he saw Kirkby as the mechanism for him to do just that. I would be very interested if you had any intelligence on that matter. It seems to me that it is not a coincidence that, right when Kirkby was called in, Kenwright came out much more explicitly and unconditionally to say that he wanted to sell the club. It looked very much like some previous plan that he had was potentially no longer viable.
I know Gregg?s critics spouted that he never went to a game but how any games has Phil Green?s mate Booby Earl been to? He now owns Gregg?s shares, he?s been to more Spurs games than Everton! Is Earl with us to give Levy advice on how not to conduct ground move?
The most benign interpretation is that all he has been doing is making sure that the club goes to a ’good’ owner. Given the disasters that have occured at Newcastle and Man City (and arguably Liverpool as well), he can hardly be blamed for that.
However, if he is simply trying to keep control for himself, then in my mind he is obviously blocking a potential sale to a major new owner investor. There are certainly plausible suggestions that he has not created favourable conditions for someone trying to buy the club, at least until recently.
Of course, given the Keith Harris comments, there is also the question of whether Everton is an attractive investment to anyone anyway!
Kenwright is the disaster. The reason why we are in this predicament is because of his prevarication about who constitutes a suitable buyer! You confer almost saintly status upon him. St Bill, the saviour and defender of all things Evertonian... yet he is the guy who is happy to move us out of the City to a retail park. I despair.
Paul Gregg was not right ?.. we have to be careful about foreign investment blah, blah. I suspect that if Mother Teresa had revealed she was a lifelong Blue with hidden billions and offered to buy him out, he would have questioned her ethics. If it had not been for Bill, we would have been at the Kings Dock. He is culpable and responsible for mis-management on a grand scale.
1 Posted 30/10/2008 at 12:56:51
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Reading this article I can only feel jealous. Say what you want about the way they change their managers more often than I change my pants, but you can't knock their vision and integrity of keeping to their roots as far as stadium development goes.
It appears that for years the Spurs board have been working hard behind the scenes, and have had a long-term plan for some time now, rather than looking for a short-term fix to a long-term problem. So many comparisons can be made between them and us right now, and in my view, Spurs have got it right, when Kenwright and Co have got it oh so wrong.
If only our board had half the guile of these guys.......