Season 2011-12
The Mail Bag
Support for Kenwright
29 Comments: A significant minority joined the march on Saturday and, whilst I respect their views, I think their voice was drowned out when Kenwright appeared on the screen. Not the most scientific survey, but I think you?ll agree there are far more fans in support of Blue Bill than against him.
Excluding the top 4, would we swap our position with any other club in the country? I for one wouldn?t.
Villa ? had a buyout from a rich foreigner, splashed a bit of cash at first and then reverted to selling more than they buy to make a profit for said foreigner. Looked very average on Saturday and not going to do anything this season.
Newcastle ? had a buyout from a rich English man, completely inept at running a football club. They sell far more than they buy, star players out with token average players in.
Sunderland ? rich backers, but they still sell star players to fund the purchase of average players.
Liverpool ? had a second buyout from rich foreigners ? going very much down the line of Villa. Splashed the cash at first, now selling away in the background. Net spend stands at around £35 million (or Carroll). Stadium plans have gone from world class arena in Stanley Park, to redevelop Anfield... to let?s see what happens. They don?t have the money and will in my opinion regret this takeover as much as the last.
Spurs ? backed by rich investors, and do buy quality players year-in, year out, but even that slowed this year when, despite big sales on transfer deadline, there wasn?t enough money for Cahill. They can?t afford a new stadium and are fighting to get the Olympic stadium as a solution.
A couple of buyouts have obviously been different: City SECOND time around, Chelsea etc but the vast majority haven?t improved the situation.
We currently roughly turn over what we spend, give or take a couple of million, and until turnover increases or wages decrease, we can?t justify a new owner saddling us with fresh debt to fund new players. Even if a new owner paid off all our current debt, that would only free up about £4 - 5million a year ? wages for one top signing, obviously excluding a transfer fee.
The way I see it, a new owner would have to pay £100 million for the club, plus debts of about £30million at the moment. Let?s say another £100 million to refurb half of the ground, or £200 million for a new stadium. Then let?s says 5 new signings who could make a difference for the club. Let?s say an average fee of £15million, plus average of £60k per week wages. That?s a total outlay of £150million ? fees plus wages over 5 years (don?t forget our current turnover can?t afford these new wages).
Not including current players who now want a wage increase to match the new signings. And we only get 5 new players ? in reality, we?d need a couple of players each year thereafter. That?s a total outlay of something like £350 - £500million and an investor is going to want an annual return of something like 7% on any investment ? at least £25million a year.
In effect, we?d then have to qualify for the CL every year, with 6 or 7 other teams in the same boat. This is why we don?t have investors fighting to take over. City fell lucky ? probably because they didn?t have the stadium issue. But with the UEFA rules changing, I can?t see another deal like theirs being done for a while.
Be thankful for what we have, instead of hoping to get out of this frying pan into a fire.
Neil Mulhearn, Posted 12/09/2011 at 11:03:37
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Whilst I'm not sure Moyes is the man to take the club forward if we do get the money behind us, I guarantee he would never throw away £75million on Henderson, Downing and Carroll.
But for how many summers more can Everton go without signing new players? We only replaced Arteta, Yakubu, Yobo, Pienaar, Vaughan and Beckford, with Vellios, Barkley and 2 LOAN signings
Based on age alone, we've got to replace Neville, Cahill, Saha, Distin in the near future at least. We also have to convince the likes of Fellani, Heitinga, Coleman and Rodwell to secure long term contracts soon. How can we NOT demand change?
Sadly, it is always a minority in a community able to look ahead.
No one is more important than the players at any time imo and certainly not during a game. The only thing i am certain of regarding Kenwright is that his image is not going to get us 3 points.
Okay some of the clubs mentioned have sold so called star players but at least they've brought players in on a permanent basis.
At present the debt may have been slightly reduced via the sales of Arteta et al but with still no signs of investment coming into the club then in the next couple of transfer windows what do you think is going to happen other than more players sold.
In the same vein as what you've written for the other clubs, this would be my summary for Everton in its present state:
Everton: Cash-poor English owner, completely inept at running a football club (see the marketing, investment and development failures), sell far more than they buy, regularly have to sell star players with none in return, have looked very average in many games for many seasons now, close to zero ground assets, no discernible plan or direction for the future from chairman or CEO, has a history of embarrassing planning failures in recent times, and has been held by its proverbial balls by their bank for quite some time now (according to the Chairman himself in a recently published interview).
I'm really sorry, but how exactly are we better off than any of the other clubs you've described?
Nothing?
Be thankful for nothing?
Is this serious?
Even funnier, is those jumping around it suggesting 100 million is 'too much', even though they admit they know nothing about how a valuation of any business is made.
For reference, the City takeover was around 200 million and Liverpools closer to 300 million. People suggesting we should be sold for 30 million are just plain fucking stupid. Baines and Fellaini alone are worth more than that.
It could be argued that against QPR, the majority of support was against him. The clapping meant nothing. Dan you are quite right Moyes was to blame for QPR, negative as usual, but Billy Boy should shoulder some blame as well.
As for the price of the club at £100m thats got to be taken into consideration when weighed up during due dilligence against assets and debts not so much of a case of being "fucking stupid" but taking a look at the offer on the table and saying whether or not its a good one.
I would be happy for somebody with a business brain (and not necessarily an endless sack of cash) to come in and put in a 5-10 year plan to grow revenues by whatever means come available.
From the last set of accounts, we're running a £5m deficit each year, and that's with no new players coming in. Hopefully the sales of Arteta, Yakubu, Beckford, Vaughan, Pienaar and Yobo will narrow the gap a bit but that's still unsustainable.
A new owner needs to buy out Kenwright and the other major shareholders. For argument's sake let's say that totals £100m if that's what Bill is looking for. They don't necessarily need to pay off the £40 debt straight away, finance a new stadium or invest in the side. If they can generate a £10m surplus each season then that alone would be enough to start turning around the club's fortunes off the pitch. Also, Gillette and Hicks had to accept a deal where Liverpool's debt offset the owner's valuation, so Kenwright may be forced to sell for £60m, with the other £40m going to the bank. You can't have your cake and eat it although I expect that's exactly what Kenwright is trying to do.
We need to invest any surplus, in the short term, in better merchandising deals, marketing in the far east, more corporate boxes, etc. These are the things that the incumbent board have had eleven years to sort out and have utterly screwed up.
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Sorry that is well off. Randy Lerner has sunk many tens of millions into Villa, and frankly, O'Neill did not deliver. Nearly, maybe, but not. Villa were regularly behind us in that time.
Villa may not be splashing the cash like they did, but at the time that O' Neill spat his dummy out and walked, the club was spending 95% of its revenues on wages. That is totally unsustainble even for an extremely rich sugar daddy.
And when they needed a goalscorer last year: Wallop, £24 million. I do not believe Everton should follow that lead, but hats off to a chairman who poured his millions away. He does not deserve to be labelled a profiteer, far from it.
My point is that we have nothing to lose if the club is sold. If we get sold to someone who only has a little money to spend, that's fine because Bill Kenwright has absolutely nothing to spend.
The balance sheet broadly tells you that we break even, we slip behind if we try to pay our players too much but swiftly get ahead by selling a player or two.
Regardless of your assertions to the contrary, the value of our players has everything to do with the value of our club and, if people realised this instead of trying to compare us to Northern Rock, we could have a sensible conversation.
As for the original post, my only grievance with Kenwright et al is that they haven't managed to reduce the debt to make us more sustainable. I think in addition to Neil's comments, the two clubs which I envy in terms of their ownership are Stoke and Arsenal who only spend what they can earn and are run as viable businesses.
Fellaini's current value is around £15-20M.
If he runs down his contract as Pienaar did, we might only realise £5m for him in his last year.
All very subjective trying to put a fixed value on players.
We sold arteta because the bank told us too...............
Ask this question of the club,
What happened to the park end development?
When you know the answer to this question.
You,ll know what trouble we are really in.
And you're thankful for that?
Two questions: after putting millions into Villa, then doesn't Lerner have every right to be making a profit?
After not putting a bean into the club, if BK sells, and makes a huge profit, would that be okay with you?
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1 Posted 12/09/2011 at 14:36:30
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Be careful what you wish for, I say. We don't have any money to spend but the list of rich benefactors is a very small one. In fact, I don't think there is a list at all.