Chris, this point has been answered by Brian Williams in a different thread over the weekend. I've edited it a little (in its relation to the other thread) and copied it below.

I have to comment on the naivety with regard to things of a business nature where people are wondering about the absence of investment in Everton, with statements like, "Bill Kenwright says there's no Investment out there, while the purchase of other clubs less attractive than ourselves goes ahead regardless."

Who says they?re less attractive than ours? ? the people buying them obviously don?t think so, do they? The ones being bought are being bought because they can be an ongoing profitable business (yes, I said profitable) without extending to the absolute millions it would take to do the same with our club.

It may seem a bit of a weird theory but to make the likes of Portsmouth a decent ongoing, if booooring, proposition, is going to take a hell of a lot less than it would for Everton to be a decent proposition... why? Because the clubs, the expectations, the cost!, and the DEBTS, are just world?s apart. To take Everton to where we HAVE to go will take absolutely millions upon millions whereas to make Portsmouth earn a few bob for your money will take considerably less....and in these hard times that?s a big ask!

So call ME naive if you like but why would Bill Kenwright sell to someone who he knows couldn?t do much more than HE does... and the reason he?s not selling to someone who will pour multi millions of pounds to get us a new ground, star players etc etc... is becasue that person/persons isn't/aren't banging down the door to plead with Bill Kenwright to sell.

Do I think Kenwright?s in it just for the love of the club? No! But I also don?t think he?s inly in it to bleed money and turn himslef a huge profit either. You simply can't deny Bill Kenwright?s love of this club, it?s there for all to see... what?s also there if you look is the fact that we ain't as attractive a proposition as we may all believe, simply due to the fact that we need a lot more than other clubs in the shop window.

The prospective buyers obvioulsy accept that restoring a classic old Rolls Royce, that?s in somewhat need of big repairs and huge ongoing cost, is much more of a daunting task, and a much less viable one too, than respraying a three-year-old Ford Focus which will do them nicely in these days of doom and gloom.

I can't agree with that analysis, Brian, purely on the basis that Everton during the past 3-4 years have been the closest to breaking through seemingly impenetrable glass ceiling of the top four. Aston Villa have spent heavily under the control of Randy Lerner and fell away this season with dramatic effect, Manchester City attracted a billionaire investor on the basis of exactly what? ? a second-rate stadium inherited as a legacy to the Commonwealth games.

As a going concern, Everton have debts that would be considered modest to the majority of teams in the Premier League, even the likes of Chamionship fodder Newcastle and Middlesborough have attracted investors in recent years but have got their business model entirely wrong and suffered the consequences.

In my opinion, Kenwright needs to do the honourable thing and put a moratorium on the Kirkby fiasco, enter into transparent discussions with the City Council and Liverpool FC regarding the possibility of a groundshare, and move aside to allow David Moyes and Everton to prosper to ensure that we experience many more days at Wembley and the like during our lifetime.

The fans deserve better, walking along Wembley Way on these past two occasions and seeing the throngs of blues has reminded me once again that we are Everton and only the best is good enough.

Brian, here is a copy of a response I posted on another thread.

Brian Williams, Portsmouth profit and loss for the last 2 years:

2007-08 Turnover £70.476M; Loss -£16.882M
( % players wages 77.6)
2006-07 Turnover £40.245M; Loss -£23.452M

which together with reported debts of £80 million and crowds of 20,000 makes them a more attractive proposition than Everton???

I wish all supporters could see Bullshit Billy for his lies and not for his ingratiating manner. Even his rich buddies Paul Gregg and now the invisible Earl and Green have realised they were conned by BK so he could keep his trainset.

Anyway on to the good news.

We have the best manager in the league despite all his supposed shortcomings.

We have the best supporters in the league even though that may be a biased view.

We have the best team spirit in the league without doubt.

Elstone appears to be sorting out the commercial operations 6 steps forward 2 steps back but progress nonetheless and certainly a major improvement on Wyness(who was appointed by who??).

The only question is how do we not stand still which we surely will unless we get more investment.

I do not believe we have looked properly at the opportunity presented to us by GP which with some commercial development (Hotel,restaurant,cafes,bars etc) could IMO be transformed and yield far better net returns than DK.

So for me it would be progress to drop Kirkby.

Reinvest in GP over time.

Invest in a couple more quality players and NOT sell any.

With the cup run and another high league placing we must have made a couple more million than last year so there may be enough to get an M?Bia and a Fabian Delph and a few loan players.

All that is certain is NOTHING is certain!

I think the main reason investors would choose Porsmouth over Everton is its proximity to London. I did it in about 45 minutes the other week and that is a big factor. Location to the capital is a major influence and it's nothing to do with Pompey being a cheaper option. I mean have you seen that Shit Dump they call Fratton Park? Makes Goodison look like the Emirates...

Tony, what about Sunderland?

I just think that BK wants his cakes and he wants to eat them all to himself. He wants investment without losing control of the club.

Not going to happen unless an investor publicly states that he is trying to buy Everton and the only thing stopping him is BK?s refusal to sell, in which case Evertonians could force BK to sell up.

I think the major point here is that we just don’t know all the facts. For some that is all the encouragement they need to jump to conclusions and do back of a fag packet workings out to make 2+2=5.

I have yet to see anyone even suggest that they have made an enquiry about buying our club. I’ve heard about other approaches at other clubs that have eventually come to nothing, but zilch about EFC. When I hear evidence that suggests Bill is turning away perfectly good investment, then I will accept that he is not being honest or does not have the best interests of the club at heart. Until that day I am happy to leave him to it.

Everyone has their opinion, I just prefer to work with actual facts not supposition and conjecture. In my eyes Bill is neither squeaky clean or a "fraudster", let’s just say "watch this space" ;0)

I’ve seen a lot of takeovers recently, but I could easily count on one hand how many of them could be considered successful. With that in mind, I am in no hurry for our club to be sold to the highest bidder. Maybe if I had all the facts my opinion would be different. I don’t so it isn’t.

Does anyone else remember an approach made to BK from a group of Liverpool based business men who could not even make an offer due to his stubborn attitude? I?m sure I heard that somewhere.

On a related note, I do think this is going to be a long hard summer. Yobo would have surely only stayed with the promise of more first team football, Lescott must be going. And if we were to lose Pienaar to Spurs then god help us. Although I accept that rumour is bollocks.

How much is Everton up for?

One thing that puzzles me, is that if there is investors lining up to buy Everton, but are being told not to slam the door on their way out by Kenwright, how come none have used the media to go public with their interest?? Billionaires ain't used to being told ?no? and certainly not by (in relative terms) small fish like Kenwright. They would bully their way through, or at least give it a go! The interested party would surely do their homework on us fans and the manager and see that they would be welcomed and use that to pressure Bill, so why nothing?? Could he be telling the truth?

Sorry Dan but your post was crying out for the response: you know when Bullshit Billy is lying... his lips are moving!

The issue here is not whether BK is turning away possible suitors. The commercial end of this club is an absolute shambles. There is little or no marketing to even try and sell the brand that is EVERTON FOOTBALL CLUB.

BK should be out there trying to market the club to suitable investors. Use the media etc and push the issue. At the moment, it just looks like he is sitting on his arse waiting for someone to come knocking on his door with a wad of cash.

It?s time the Chairman and his cronies stop playing their cloak & dagger games with the fans and tell us fans what is really happening with the club.

All progress we have made so far is worth nothing if it is not built on!

Jay Harris ? Well though out and researched post btw!

Can I get an approximate figure of the actual market value that Everton is available to these fabled investors? How much is the club worth on the market and how much is BK actually asking (And what terms and conditions)? Just as importantly, how much will the prospective price be with Kirkby set in motion?

I don't believe BK is even considering selling his stake until Kirkby is all go or not. Does he want to make a return? That's the question...

Despite all this, he will command respect if Moyes is backed this summer, which is even more important considering a possible backlash on the "Fuck off to Kirkby" fiasco..

I don’t know if there’s interest in Everton any more than all of the rest of you. Therefore to state that there is, or isn’t interest, or that Bill Kenwright has no interest in selling to anyone unless he makes a killing, is pure, unadulterated, uninformed guesswork.

Looking at the others who have attracted investment:

West Ham - Icelanders who almost led the club to oblivion. Club based in London.

Portsmouth - Close to London. Owners put little cash in, instead leveraged the purchase and player acquisitions with debt. Close to oblivion.

Aston Villa - largest club in England’s second city. Reasonably well developed ground. Owner running it as a business hence no wild transfer activity.

Sunderland - New, fully developed ground with significant corporate facilities. 7th best average attendance, 40,000 (EFC 10th with 35,000)

Newcastle - Single club city with major catchment area. 3rd best average attendance 49,000 . Reasonably well developed ground.

Man. City - Reasonably well developed ground. 2nd club but in a bigger city than Liverpool. Bigger attendances.

Man. Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool - major clubs in their cities. Automatic Champions league revenue each season.

Then see what we’ve got going for us:

History (although some time ago sadly), passionate fans (the best in my opinion), good manager, great team spirit. But none of this appears to translate into revenue earning ability - particularly when we can’t fill our ground - although GP is considerably smaller than some grounds we run on average to only 88% of capacity (15th in PL!). This could well be why investors appear reluctant to take a punt, although seasons like the last couple will no doubt help.

Source for attendances: http://itv.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/PR/attend.html

As no one has come up with a figure as to how much it would cost to buy Everton how about this. The other clubs cost less.

My friend sells cars (no not Lee). He has a lovely Maserati in his showroom that, if he could shift it, would double his turnover for the month. But nobody is buying it, instead they buy MGs, Mazda?s etc. Why, because the Maserati is too expensive. People still want sports cars but they have to buy second best. West Ham are second best.

Sorry, why are people talking about West Ham?

The man who owned West Ham suffered a catastrophic collapse of his finances (as did almost the entire country) which meant that his creditors had called in his assets. One of his biggest assets was West Ham and so his creditors have seized control of the club under the guizes of an asset management company formed last week by all those creditors.

It was not a conventional takeover inspired by West Ham?s attractiveness over Everton. It was an essential action as a result of a legal directive.

In fact, anyone who?s ever been to West Ham (or Charlton) will know just how much of a monumental & time consuming pain in the arse it is to simply get to some London grounds. Please, if you are going to use comparisons at random to support your argument, might be worth checking the facts first.

One last thing. Rather than endlessly speculate on why Everton is not at the front of the queue for new investment, perhaps an enquiry in the direction of Keith Harris and Seymour Pierce might reveal something. In fact I will contact them myself to see if they can reveal anything that might help some Evertonians contain their frustrations a little more. If they open up I will share.

And one very last thing.

I?m sure I don?t need to remind the malcontents to be careful of what they wish for. A brief glance across the park to the effects of an apparently perfect takeover can make for interesting analysis. Liverpool fans are having to give £40m every year just to pay the interest on loans taken out by their current owners to pay ... erm ... their previous owners. Now that?s what I call investment.

Man U fans fare even better. They only have to find £80m a year for the privilege of having the Glaziers as owners.

After 7 years of very close contact Moyes is fooled by Kenwright words! Give us a break!
What can be drawn from such statements.
1. Moyes is a complete idiot .
2. Those who say Moyes is sucked in are complete idiots.
3. Those who believe them that say he is sucked in are complete idiots.

Vijay, thanks for that. I ususally get pilloried for daring to criticise the Chairman.

Alan Kirwan, only 2 posters mentioned West Ham, one of them mentioning the same point as you that it wasn't what one would normally describe as a buyout but, put simply, seizing a debt.

However, there are numerous examples of investment in other clubs.

Aston Villa ? It is reported that Lerner preferred Everton initially but got no encouragement so turned to Villa.

Manchester City ? hardly more attractive than EFC except for the new ground and even that?s debatable. Also, in a two-club City outside of London with eminently more successful neighbours and significantly more debt than EFC with arguably a much higher price.

Portsmouth ? enough said above. £80 million debt, 2 years significant losses (last year almost £20 million), average gates of 20,000 in a tinshed ground with lower league placing and no history to speak of.

QPR ? Another no-mark club.

Newcastle ? joke of a club with little history but huge fanatical following and good sized stadium... you could understand an investor preferring them on a superficial level.

Sunderland ? Similarly, but on a slightly smaller scale.

Now my views on the chairman are very well known so I won't beat that drum again and no-one really knows who, if anybody, has enquired about EFC (with the exception of the reported interest from Randy Lerner).

However, as someone who has been involved in a number of business aquisitions and disposals, I cannot understand why there is apparently NO interest in the 5th most successful Premier League team with realtively low debt and a stable environment when the rest of English football, particularly the Prem, is attracting so much interest.

Investors are, in the main, no fools, and brokers and agents are desperately trying to get their commissions up in this economic recession... so why aren't EFC being heavily touted if they are, as BK claims, up for sale???

The fact that Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim finds Portsmouth a more attractive proposition than Everton is simply astonishing. Al Fahim is already a billionaire, he?s in it to own a winner. And Everton are much closer to qualifying for the CL than Pompey (see Man CIty)

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And I?m not talking about the tomatoes at the proposed Tescos in Kirkby.

Most of the takeovers have been funded by debt on to the club it’s self, like at WHU, the eggman doesnt have all the debt, they are in effect, paying for their own take over at the rate of 1.25mill per quarter for 10 yrs from the start date. Same type of deal for the rs and Man U only in each case the figures go up in magnitude.

Yes we keep on hearing that Bill mortgaged his house to buy out agent johnson, how much was that, how long ago, 2 property booms ago methinks.

Some other deal, to keep all his plates in the air, would be done, lo and behold the next years accounts showed an increase in debt total.

His day job is getting ’Angels’ ( lovie term for mug punters ) to invest in his up coming attraction ( think Sallone and the other planet hollywood tosser whose name escapes me) on the sniff of a possible profit ( 80% total bums on seats for a long run ) and the chance to rub shoulders and bask in the reflected glory of the theatre and it’s and I use the term in it’s loosest possible sense ’stars’

Biographical detail: Post Corrie, he was due to play the lead in ...wait for it... ’Billy Liar’ and it folded before it started like the Widnes Origami Club.

His day job is BULLSHITTING ( in lovie speak, aka, willing suspension of disbelief )
He won’t change his spots, he can’t help it, he is double speak personified.

True Blue Evertonian? no doubt, as are we all. Probabley a top bloke to spend an evening out with, etc etc etc

What you is is what you get, yes...but,

What you hear is NOT what you get.

Except the odd time to be the exeption that proves the rule.

He is searching for INVESTMENT...not

TAKE OVER

Jay, you do make me smile with your bullshit about BK. Who gave RE the job? Guess who ? BK... but you can't see that because you?re blinkered.

EFC is not a viable purchase simple as. As fans we all love the club and it may sound strange why others don?t see what we have in our hearts but as a business model we are second rate.

Brand, very poor and has no identity. We live in the past and our logo is the ?People's Club?, in its own right insular in the marketing world.

That?s the whole problem we face: we are the Woolworths (but still in business) of the retail sector that?s hanging on season by season. We have had to sell or even re-mortgage assets to get through each season. The fact is simple: EFC is very close in credit card terms to its limit and we cant use any other cards to spread the debit as we will not be able to sustain the repayments.

The Chairman is a wealthy man in his own right but doesn?t have the means to support his passion and until we have another Guardian Angel with hundreds of millions to spare, we have to be realistic with our ambitions. Sadly that means at times we have to settle for second or even third best.

Any would be investor must be prepared to right off the purchase price, current debit, new stadium/refurb and new players ? all which comes in at around £300/500 million depending on what expectations they have. Once you have spent this money we would be on par with the likes of Man City today, in our dreams this would take minimum 3-4 years to complete most of the other teams. Newcastle, Sunderland, Villa, Man City & Spurs can achieve that in 1-2 years.

To conclude we need a billionaire that loves the Brand, not looking for an immediate return and who is extremely patient. These characteristics are very difficult to find, especially within the billionaire sector.

I on the other hand enjoy being just Everton, having limited funds, passion in abundance and a massive sense of pride every time I hear Z-Cars or see the Royal Blue Jersey. Nil Satis Nisi Optimum is not found on our P&L ? it's in out hearts that why we are Evertonians. I would not swap that with Man City, would you...? COYB

Jay Harris - didn’t BK appoint Moyes too? Not the worst appointment of all time.

Although "London" is a big factor it’s not everything (Man City / Sunderland / Newcastle / Villa).

The common denominator in all of this is the ground issue.

One of the reasons we get 88% attendances is people wont put up with and pay for obstructed views (why the club doesn’t charge lower prices in these substandard seats in order to fill them is beyond me)

I don’t want anything to do with DK but I can guarantee if it’s given the go ahead we’ll have people queuing up to buy us. BK’s not going out of his way to flog the club until he can stick a nice shiny stadium on the "For Sale" notice. Until then both BK and the investors are keeping their money in their pockets until the cards hit the table. Once they do they’ll be a frenzy of activity but until then all bets are off. Why would you buy or sell the club until it was decided? Both sets are banking on DK passing the board so a) BK gets the best price for the club and b) the investors get something they view worth investing in.

It’s already been noted on here, but to emphasise: the reason we are not seen as an attractive investment is because, like it or not, we are the second club in a provincial city. Potential owners look at the club and see a massive obstacle to domination in its local catchment area just across the park, and that’s before you get into the national or international spectrums.

Before anyone says "what about Man City?", yes - they are similar: second club in a provincial city. But the big difference is (hate to say this) but Manchester is a bigger economic and business hub than Liverpool, with a bigger population (Greater Manchester v Merseyside) and wider catchment area and is therefore a more attractive location to invest in, which makes their club more attractive to invest in than ours. Don’t forget as well that when they were taken over they had also been given a new stadium for virtually free and were therefore much more attractive in that respect.

Basically, everywhere you look there are other clubs that are more appealing as a business investment: either less debt, better location, fewer improvements to be made to facilities, or less current political in-fighting. Forget the football side of things, the history and tradition - they don’t count.

I have to agree with the earlier post, what is the point of ?investment? when the club end up saddled with the debt used to buy itself?? It's a fucking ridiculous staet of affairs and is the ultimate in debtonomics ? which as we have all seen is falling apart at the seams across the country...

Everyone wants us to be like Vvilla ? WTF! Randy Lerner is not just an undersexed pupil at a driving school, he is a businessman, and who thinks Villa have really spent more net money than us over the past three years? I think there may be a few million in it ? so fucking what!

Man City will fall apart in the next few years as they start a Newcastle-like merry go round of managers which will leave them under the cosh.

Pompey ? hahaha don't make me laugh ? they are a load of shit and they are also putting themselves in more debt for no reward, even crouch wants out!

West Ham as someone said are at crisis point, so forget about them.

The Sky 4 have the monopoly and support of Uefa so they are always gonna be in a different boat unless we can break through and spoil the party for one of them.

So who else is there ? I think if you asked fans of most teams in the league they would say they wished their club had something similar to the current Everton system of steady improvement, a supportive chairman, astute management and overall improvement of the players for little or no transfer fees (net).

When you have dreams, it's easy to wish for a lottery win and instant achievement, but for 99.9% of us (despite what the adverts say) it will never happen, so in which case it is best to get your head down and start working hard towards your goals with a long term point-of-view, rather than trying to lend the money off someone, live the dream for a week, then go bankrupt and suffer the consequences.

So lads, my message is look to the future but remember how far we've already come!!

We obviously need to talk to those who have shown a recent interest in Everton, then decided to look elsewhere and to find out what their reasons were.

As it puzzles me why we have had no offers, even stupid ones.

Maybe its Bk’s unwillingness to let go of the reins.

I?m a billionnaire. My mate owns a football club and the lads from the "Gentlemens" club are betting me I can?t do better than him.

So I am on the look out for a football club. I want to win and beat my mate because he?s won the PL a few times and the FA Cup this year. I have that much money that the "Economic Down turn" doesn?t affect me.

Now am I going to buy a club who will make me a profit or am I going to buy a club who I think I can win things with?

Basically my mates doing it with "Soft" loans. I could do the same. Buy players and loan the club the money interest free. I could even develop a stadium but I?ll keep that and rent it to the club. Make sure I get something back from it.



Now I hear all of you out there calling on these Billionnaires wanting to turn a football club into a profitable business. Don?t make me laugh.

Chelsea might make an operating profit but the money they buy players with comes out of Abramovichs arse pocket. When this "debt" is added to the books Chelsea are millions in debt but only if he decides to call the debt in. Any profit Chelasea Makes does not go to Ambramovich so why did he buy Chelsea? He isn?t going to make money on it and it is highly unlikely he will ever get all of his money back.

Likewise with the Arabs that have bought Man City, they haven?t done it to make money. Bidding £100m for a player proves that. Think about it, £100m plus £xm per year in wages your looking at £150m spent on 1 player. That one player is never, ever going to make you that money back by himself. That is unless after his contract is over you are able to sell him for £200m but that is never ever going too happen either in reality is it?

What I am getting at is that these billionaires want a toy. A PL team is the most exclusive toy available at the moment and when they become availble they get snapped up. I think the only Billionnaire not to splash the cash extravagantly yet(?) is Lerner at Villa. He is very much the minority too.

So before we all to start thinking football is a major business and is run like a business just look at premier league debt, would you run your business like that, I can guarentee that these billionnaires don?t run their own business?s like that itherwise they wouldn?t be billionnaires.

To these guys football is a game and making money is not the sign of being successful. Winning trophys is and you might think that last statement is weird considering the money involved but if these guys aren?t making money.... why are they buying football clubs? If we get a billionnaire owner we better hope that he is interested in building an empire in blue and white that is self sustainable otherwise we are just going to get your standard billionnaire owner ready to saddle you with "soft" debt until he becomes bored/dies whatever and it gets called in.

Alan Willo, so Portsmouth, Man City and Villa are better "brands" than EFC???

John Hughes, very good point and when the bubble bursts, which it surely will, the super rich abandon ship or will it just be a blip in their finances?

We?ll find out...

Neil McKinney, Steve Pugh, Perry Umbown - in particular, great comments from all 3, and I have to say a wonderful thread overall, WITH VERY LITTLE ’SNIPING’ involved.

I would just echo the ’be careful what you wish for’ message. I still remember the RS fans crowing when the Yanks came in, and its now 45 days and counting for them to re-finance their loan or face serious consequences (hopefully administration and a 10-30 point deduction for next season).

At the end of the day, BK may tell some ’untruths’, DM may be ’tactically inept’ as one poster on another thread put it, and Goodison might not be the wonderful stadium it once was, but we are going in the right direction, and if there were any major changes to the game (English players quota/salary cap/major reduction in TV monies), I’m confident we could ride them out. Some of the clubs mentioned in the thread could not.

And to Chris, the OP, whilst your article created a very good debate, and for that you should be congratulated, I’m interested as to how you think we will be competing against the teams you mention? Technically, of course, we are, and also against the other 12 teams. But we lost 4 of 14 against these 7 last season - 1 of these was the game at home to Shiteh when we were absolutely fooked after the semi and the Chelski game. Another was the last ditch defeat to Villa. And the embarassment of a ’double’ at the hands of Pompey (lucky and we were shit in both games).

Whilst these clubs will no doubt have money to spend (and the reason, I assume, why you have them jostling with us), we have a young squad with continuity and consistency, which will be added to in some shape or form, and the level of performance over the last 2 years simply does not go away. The only 2 of the 7 likely to try (and fail) to get close to us are City and Fulham - City cos they got SERIOUS money and can replace an entire team, and Fulham for similar reasons as to why we are doing so well - a settled squad. Sunderland, West Ham and Pompey would need serious investment (100mill plus), Villa will go backwards, and don’t even get me started on Spurs.

Jay, Man City & Villa, yes... for different reasons, and Portsmouth has the southern factor so that adds value but not sure how much. What we feel about our club is unique, non-Evertonians don't get it ? that's why we dont have the appeal. COYB

The answer is simple - whoever decides to purchase Everton Football Club at the moment, not only needs to raise the finances to purchase the shares, but, also needs to stump up £300M plus for a new stadium!

This is why less successful clubs are being purchased ahead of us.

If the Kirby project gets the go ahead they’ll be a queue of investors.

Just my personnel view and feel free to blow it out of the water. First the facts: A few rumours about interested paties mostly this time last year, A decision on DK later this year, Other less attractive clubs being sold (less attractive no matter how you look at it). Could (and i know it has been said many times by many people) it be that there wont be any movement on the sale of our club until DK has been sorted, but maybe just maybe the deal has already been done and there are buyers already in place depending on the DK decision. These buyers would not be prepered to invest until they had control of the club, would it not make sence why it is so quite on the investment front and why other clubs seem to be getting sold left right and centre. My only thought knocking this is you would of thought there would have been some kind of leak in the press over the last 12 months.

The obvious point to raise yet again as it still sticks is that the DK documentation clearly states that none of the majority shareholders of Everton are willing to sell or dilute their shareholdings, so that's a clear "fuck off, not for sale" sign.

"Investment" is a subtle but whole world away from "for sale"; investment is seeking somebody to give you funding, we don?t know what they would get in return; that other clubs have seen buyers not bloody investors ? no matter where they are ? is pretty damning evidence.

The whole marketability of Everton was never put so on a plate as the recent FA Cup Final where every single radio and television broadcaster stated that the Everton fans made the final. If you were there, you would have seen far more Evertonians outside the ground than in it and a half decent business person would have seen dollar signs flashing, thinking to themselves, "Christ, we could make a packet out of that lot, look at the passion, look at that following!" ? something the historyless Chelski mercenaries couldn?t dream to match despite their London base.

Some business ideas are subtle but some are as clear as bloody daylight.