The Real White Elephant?

The new stadium thing more times than not is a business/political opportunity for those with the most to gain business-wise/politically.

Goodison needs improving because it needs improving, getting into hock over a new build to become Derby, Boro, Southampton, Bolton etc. is indulgent lunacy. Phase develop GP.

The sale of the club is a guessing game everything is hidden from view,the number and the breadth of clubs sold since Abramovich turned up makes our situation stick out like a sore thumb. I hear what you say about the marketing but just don't see it being a deal breaker.

If it walks and talks like a duck it's a duck and Kenwright cutting off meaningful communication via the AGM just smacks of polit bureau self interest not the club's interest.

The reason we haven't been sold are the terms (aka price), in my opinion.

He'd only have to re-open AGM's and answer a few questions and we'd know - very straightforward.

All three areas mentioned in the OP need addressing, though the stadium is probably the least urgent and the one requiring the most capital investment. It tends to stick in the mind prcisely because of the failure of the much vaunted projects and the feeling that we should already be enjoying whatever extra revenue a shiny new stadium would bring.

As a club we seem to be at a real impasse at the moment and it appears to be very worrying for a lot of posters (me included). I keep reading, however, that we are only a couple of players short of challenging for the Champions League places. As such success would undoubtedly raise our global profile and attendant merchandising opportunities, as well as lead to more gate revenue, it seems like a good return for relatively little money, and yet a lot of these optimistic posters don't seem to think it would make sense for existing board members to scrape together the £20 - 25 million to make it happen. Seems like we are damned if we do, and damned if we don't.

The sums of a new stadium versus redevelopment have never added up beyond the auld tight fisted fuckers on the board having stitched up pockets and not willing to pay for it themselves thus looking for a free ride on some other buggers coat tails which would give them an opportunity to sell their shares for a killing.

Sorry you missed the Newcastle game Phil (unless that was the one you went to) because we were magnificent. And the Sunderland home league game. But I digress

'The running of this once great club is an absolute and abject disgrace' to quote another Phil. Compared to the days when butchers, bakers and Littlewoods Pools used to bankroll clubs, this may be true.

So they've made deals to try to secure the future of the club which any possible new owner would not have made. Jeez Phil, with that 2020 hindsight capacity you must be with Arry's dog in Monaco by now. Rolling in it.

'I agree a run-down stadium might put some owners off.'

Call me toffee-nosed if you like (now there's an interesting expression), but if it wasn't for our lads on the field I wouldn't go anywhere near Goodison Road again. The world seems to have left that little area behind. Replacing the chip shops with MacDonalds outlets would hardly represent progress in my book, but if any organisation wants to impress its visitors, including potential investors, Goodison Road is not the place to take them.

EFC for historical reasons shares the same city as another club which has become a global brand only because of success on the field. And any bloody idiot could market that.

Phil, you've missed the point - the football comes first, the rest follows on. Give us a few good Euro seasons and the sponsors and buyers will be queuing up, and buying out previously agreed contracts. That's the only way to rewrite history.

I think you're both still holding onto the romantic notion that what happens on the pitch will be enough to drive what happens off it. Those days are long gone. Our business operations and stadium dictate our budget. Our current Executive expertise dictate EFC's ability to negotiate and bring in better deals. The result is less money for Moyes and yet another year living off scraps. How can that ever be a catalyst?

As for saying the Shirt deals and/or the Stadium is irrelevant. Why did the Sheikhs at City aside from spending £100Ms on players, immediately look at building City's commercial operations and branding. Note theye also have more illustrious neighbours.
Even Abramovitch saw this and pinched Kenyon from Man United to help build Chelsea.

We missed two opportunities in 1970 and 1987 in times when you could build a club from the players up. Now it isn't that simple. The club needs a substantial and immediate cash injection. I don't see Kenwright or co selling up at a reasonable price which means it could only come from one other place - Commerical deals. Unless, of course you've sold off that 90% revenue stream too.

Plus increased success doesn't equate to increased gates as we have been operating at maximum capacity for several seasons except the last.

So what comes first, the chicken or the egg? We invest in the playing squad to get the on field success and then expand the stadium / build new just in time to start failing again and have a bigger empty stadium.

Or we invest in the existing stadium to increase our earnings from off field commercial activities and use the extra income generated to improve the playing staff and gain on field success.

I think only the latter is self sustaining but the crucial word in both scenarios is 'invest' and that will never happen with the current board.

Liverpool have proved that a sustained period of success can build you a global brand and huge interest from international investment groups. The club has failed to win the league in over twenty years and has done nothing by the bigger clubs' standards in three or four yet it still gets the Fenway group pumping millions into it.

On the flip side, there could be any number of clubs in league one or league two being run as a model in business efficiency but without success on the pitch it means nothing. At best they will get one or two televised games a season from Sky and that is simply because Sky have to pretend it cares about the lower leagues.

Everton? All that history and tradition counts for nothing in the business world and right now, we can't even manage to run ourselves properly.

They would recoup their revenue jointly with the club over the next ten years with other events/concerts/naming rights etc. Bill could then sell the club for what its is worth, ie, £50 million less the stadium but with Everton as tenants for the next 25 years.

Assuming Everton still own the ground and planning permission could be obtained, then the ground could become a respectable 50,000-seat arena with modern facilities..... Okay, still in L4 — but where most of us would like it to be.

Agree with all of this, but you have already stated elsewhere that you think the current board would be stupid to invest any (more?) money, so how is it going to happen.

This is where I fundamentally disagree with a lot of what you have posted recently. You point out what is needed but refuse to go the extra distance and admit that it is the current incumbents of our Board who need to find the extra money needed for investment in the team, otherwise anything they have already done (which is a contentious subject but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt for the sake of this argument) is likely to come to nought and they will lose everything anyway (condemning the club to inevitable decline in the process).

What seems to hold you back from the obvious conclusion is the fact that you have decided that it is treasonous to criticise the Board in any way.

'Many clubs are saddled with too much debt, for example Everton, and the restrictions imposed by their bankers will ensure there is a tighter control over wages going forward.'

If this doesn't set alarm bells ringing with some people, when another chairman cites Everton as a club straddled with too much debt, then I don't know what will. Out of all the clubs in the Premier League to choose, he has identified us — I find that worrying.

In many ways I agree with you about the board not investing their own money into the club but they were the only buyers and we welcomed them rescuing us from the diabolical PJ. They own the club and as there are no laws to compel them to self-invest, that any investment would be financial lunacy and that their total wealth wouldn’t solve our problems whilst bankrupting them, then I fully understand why they don’t.

It could be said that, regardless of the investment they have done a great job in keeping us afloat, an achievement they should be given at least some credit for. See “Standing still should be considered moving forward for EFC” – that sums up my points exactly, for me it has been an exceptional achievement for the Board and manager to have kept us in such a respectable position and now with a very good squad.

We were and are never going to get “investment” at the level we need Plan B is what you see today, I’m sure they have a plan C which is eventually a managed decline until spending matches revenue with low debt. My guess is that would mean enjoying league games against Tranmere.

We as a club are in desperate trouble and to expect the board to meet the expectations of the fans while we are in this state is unrealistic. I believe that most of us are beginning to realise the immensity of our problems now. A new ground in Lodge Lane? Was that serious?

Come back Peter Johnson, all is forgiven.

Martin, what you have just clearly shown, better than I ever could have done myself, is that our board are not in a position to run a football club. As you clearly state, they have put the club at risk to invest in players. Because of that, we have not invested in our infrastructure at all, and we have a squad of players reaching retirement age that will need replacing...

Oh, but we spent all the money on players instead of increasing our revenue streams. It's not sustainable, and the blame lies squarely with the board. You even used the word 'gambled' – that is exactly what they have done. They have certainly not done a 'great job in keeping us afloat'. That award goes to David Moyes and him alone. This current board have sold off all the family silver and gambled on buying some players with it; it paid off in the short term, but long term we are now fucked...

However, the potential restrictions that a buyer faces with respect to his ability to increase cash will just be reflected in the purchase price.

Using your example Phil, a buyer might decide that (through his skill) he could increase merchandise income by 10% a year from £3m at the date of acquisition. Over 10 years, he might assign a value to this income of £33.2m (present value of £3m p.a. +10% p.a discounted at 6%).

If he was 'locked in' at £3m per annum for 10 years then he might assign a value to this income of £23.4m and therefore reduce the purchase price by £9.8m (£33.2 less £23.4m).

All of these 'poor business' decisions people talk about with respect to Everton are never reason for the club not to be sold. They are merely things that would negatively affect valuation.

Of course, if your view was that Everton's maximum potential income from merchandising was £3m p.a., then maybe you'd view the contract as a positive...........

And Abramovich, getting his ill-earned gains as far away from the KGB (or whatever Putin's lot are called now) in his favourite vanity project is something we should base ourselves on. How exactly?

And Danny Broderick quotes the pornographer David Sullivan as a fount of wisdom. Self-made millionaire and exploiter of someone's daughter, owner of the mighty West Ham.

Sheiks, gangsters and pornographers. Long way from the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker isn't it. But hey, this is the real world. And Bill should be selling the club for 'a reasonable price'. Which is what? And to whom?

Peter Laing - which players have we sold "to keep afloat"? I'm willing to be corrected, but I think the answer is none.

1970 - I guess the Littlewoods money was all that was needed back then. On the field we quickly fell apart.

1985 - don't even get me started on why we didn't become the biggest name in Europe and possibly the world.

Sure. Some of our managers are inept. Like they are at Barclays. TSB. Her Majesty's Government - would you like Gideon Orborne running us?. Talk about running a chip shop - wanker.

We are a football club. If it doesn't happen on that sacred turf on Saturday afternoon (sort of) it doesn't happen at all. Its not 'chicken and egg'. Yes, it can go horribly wrong (Rangers, Leeds etc) but despite everything, it hasn't yet.

And since January we have acquired Jelavic, Naismith and Pienaar and finished above Liverpool. If only we were competent, who knows what next.

ps - chicken and egg is far simpler than this stuff. The egg came first.

Sorry but almost fell off my chair when I read the above - thanks for the comedy value Martin 223.

Future income already spent/borrowed against, only remaining assets are the players, key players sold off now and then to appease creditors, regular operating losses, no obvious viable mid to long term business plan other than pray we stay in the premiership and that the sky money keeps increasing.

The long term future most certainly does not look bright.....am curious to see what the 'other operating costs' will be when the 2012 accounts are published.

On that thread, you stated that we have a fantastic squad that is only a couple of players short of mounting a challenge for the Champions League places. Now, I don't entirely agree with that assessment but I am willing to let that slide in order to make my point. If we only require a couple of players to be challenging for European football (and presumably even better tilts at the domestic cups) why would you applaud the Board for not finding the necessary finance to buy those couple of players.

You termed it as throwing their money into a black hole, and yet here you are arguing that the growth / recovery of the club has to be organic and sustainable based on success on the pitch and the marketing opportunities that would flow from it. Investing in the team is either the way to go or it isn't.

You repeat your assertion "that any investment would be financial lunacy and that their total wealth wouldn’t solve our problems whilst bankrupting them" as though it is established fact when it is actually nothing more than subjective and opinionated reasoning on your part.

As you have pointed out the current Board (led by BK) has borrowed against or sold off assets to keep the club going (which isn't actually using any of their own money). To be fair, that has to be considered against them now wanting over five time more than what it cost to buy the club at the start of their tenure which suggests there was an awful lot of borrowing going on that isn't covered in the normal running of the club (or they ARE looking to make a killing from the sale). Either way it doesn't amount to astute business, more a desperate attempt to roll six after six.

Who is to blame for the current state of affairs? Is it BK or the others whose personal wealth vastly eclipses his own but who do not appear to share his passion for the club (seeing it only as a way to make money with as little risk as possible)? That may not matter, because if they want to protect that investment then they need to find about £20 - 30 million quid between them, or they risk losing all they have already staked if the team stops over-achieving.

Which players? When?

"no obvious viable mid to long term business plan other than pray we stay in the premiership" -

like, by being a football club you mean? 46 years for me and counting. And yet we finish above Liverpool. Who can flush millions down the drain hoping to offload donkey-tail?

Well at least a part of this world isn't run by accountants.

Or have I got it all wrong?

I will agree with you that the timing by Arteta was lousy.

The point is that - and I'll say this very slowly - he wasn't sold. He would still be with us now if it wasn't for him. The bank had nothing to do with it.

Next player please.

Why are you so sure that we've never had to sell a player to keep the banks happy?

Last year we generated EBITDA of roughly £nil and had a £4m+ interest bill. How did we pay that with our lines of credit closed and no other assets to sell?

On top of that, we had £24m of debt due for repayment within one year. Again, there was no refinancing available (through conventional means) so how did we keep the banks from our door?

I'm not of the opinion that we need to do this every year but I don't see how you can conclude (and be so adamant about it) hat we don't have to sell players to satisfy the financiers.

Rooney and Arteta.

(IMO).

We sold Yakubu.

We sold Vaughan.

We sold Beckford.

As far as I know none of them requested a transfer.

Rooney did.

Lescott did.

Arteta did.

Pienaar did.

How the hell a business which EFC has to be keeps going I don't know. But some facts speak for themselves - as above.

DM didnt want to sell. Dragged it out. Blamed a poor start to the season on it but made sure he extracted some cash from it to strengthen a depleted squad.

Rooney did. Or so we're told.

Bill said he wouldn't sell for 50 mill. Rooney cried. Apparently. Does anyone know for sure the final selling price. We certainly didn't replace him with the reported £28 million worth of talent.

Arteta did. With half an hour to go in the window. ''Wait until January'' we were told, it was definitely not going to the bank. It took Billy to go before we moved for anyone.

Massive differences between the transfers of Lescott and those of Rooney and Arteta. I just refuse to believe proven liars.

Lescott was offered 'personal terms' which he was going to get by playing like a teenager. Yes, we took the petrodollars, and managed the accounts accordingly. But - and how many times do I have to say this, he wasn't for sale.

Rooney wasn't for sale. When a player's going, the only thing we can do is to hold out for the best price we can get. There isn't a 'transfer kitty' when you're running on an overdraft.

And by the way, the January you referred to, would that be the one when we got Jelavic? A bit raw, but looks like he could make it.

Do you think we got the best price for Rooney? Did we use all the money from the sale of the most promising Everton player in generations, to improve the squad, or the infrastructure around the club?

Or did a portion go to pay an ever increasing and threatening debt.

Yes, the January I referred to would be the one where we signed Jelavic, and how many times do I have to say this (wipes brow dramatically), after we had sold Billy. The Arteta money, despite being told in August that it would be available to the manager in January, went towards the debt. These are the reasons why, I believe, in answer to your question at 255, these are two players sold to appease creditors.

The difference between Lescott and the Rooney and Arteta sales is that we actually spent the majority of the Lescott money.

No offence Keith but I think you're living on a different planet if you think we would still be functioning as a club if we weren't flogging players for big money on a regular basis. It's all very well saying they weren't up for sale but (with the exception of Lescott) we haven't exactly fought very hard to keep them.

You can't tell me that a few million here or there would have affected Sheik Mansour or Abramovich!?

The only point to fixing the commercial business is if they intend to keep it, which they do, but ironically, they can't.

We were operating at a £5m/yr loss. Since then, we have unloaded the wages of Arteta, Yakubu, Beckford, McFadden and Cahill (and I'm sure others I can't think of); even after adding on Naismith, Pienaar and Jela, I bet we've saved the requisite £96k/week that was contributing to that loss. Then there's the incoming TV money which is only going one way. I would have thought the club's financial model is cash neutral at least by this time next year.

They could sell naming rights to a redeveloped Park End though and raise money, and if they could also get an enabling partner n the form of a hotel. But these days hotels tend to rent properties rather than build them so that would mean the Club putting in the money first.

Well the Areta money went straight to the bank, Moyes didn't see all of the Lescott money and I'm sure we didn't spend the money we got for Rooney on players.

In fact the sale of Rooney was the single biggest thing that kept the Club afloat.

There are no disconnects in my other comments and as far as I know I've left nothing unanswered. Post it again if you need.

So ....

We didn't sell Rooney because we wanted, or needed to. His agent put the £££ signs in his eyes and he said he was going. What happened to the money after that none of us know. But we didn't put a 'for sale' notice on him.

Lescott wasn't 'for sale'. What happened to the money ... (please copy and paste from the previous paragraph).

Arteta wasn't for sale ... (please copy and paste ...)

Yakubu was for sale. Vaughan was for sale, Beckford was for sale.

So, the club appears to be 'afloat'. I don't have to trust anything Bill or anyone else says. I view the evidence and draw my own conclusions.

Based on logic.

Now anyone who thinks that horses push carts should form an orderly queue below, preferably in alphabetical order.

I'm hoping to be a millionaire, but sitting on my arse with my fingers crossed is not going to achieve that. Which may not be what our board are doing, however since they've never actually publically declared their intentions. The assumption is not an unreasonable one.

My OP was more focused on what incentives are there for a potential buyer or investor, assuming the price isn't rock bottom. As I mentioned at the very top. Stadiums can be redeveloped, players can be purchased. But a contract lasting a decade which hands over any (and every penny of) merchandising profit above £3M to a third party cannot be easily rectified. And since this potentially equates to somewhere between 20-40% of a club's revenue. It's a big pill even for a billionaire businessman to swallow.

The only point I've made in this thread is that EFC don't sell their best players to 'keep afloat'. We are not a selling club. We have a very tight wage structure (we are a poor club) and that makes us vulnerable to the kind of poaching we saw with Lescott. But selling a few shirts didn't put City in the position to do that, did it.

If players that we want to keep say they're going, there's sod all we can do except get thew best price we can for them. And if that money keeps the club afloat, so be it. But its that way round. Horse and cart stuff.

Your evidence for the financial security of the Club seems to be based on what has been publically communicated to the fans i.e., transfer requests and other reasons for plaer sales etc.

What about the maths? Are you able to respond to that? I'm talking about the fact the we have been running a cash deficit for the last few years and have previously relied on extending our overdraft to soak up the shortfall. Once the safety net from the banks was withdrawn, we were left with no other option than to reduce the wagebill and sell players.

The Directors said it themselves in the annual report. Have a read if you like. We received a 'going concern' opinion from the auditors i.e., we are able to trade for the next 12 months on the basis that the Directors have 'flexibiltiy' on player trading i.e., without the ability to sell players, Everton would not be a viable business.

Surely publically available evidence verified by an independent third party is better evidence of our financial health than guessing why players have been sold?

Where did the money from Yakubu,Vaughan,Arteta,Beckford etc go to?

If it wasn't spent on replacements (which it clearly wasn't) it must have been swallowed up by the banks - I remember Moyes admitting as much. As such, player sales kept the club afloat last year. I'm sure there are other examples too.

Rooney, Lescott. £££ signs in their eyes. Now I have to admit that this is only my interpretation. Do you see it differently?

"(we are a poor club) and that makes us vulnerable to the kind of poaching we saw with Lescott. But selling a few shirts didn't put City in the position to do that, did it."

It's that mentality which seems to riddle the club. "Selling a few shirts" and Manufacturer sponsorship makes 20-40% of a well run club's revenue. Instead our board have locked us in a deal which currently puts us alongside Fulham. Imagine in 6-7 years time how that £3M will compare to the rest of the Premier League?

Yes, selling merchandise can't turn the club around alone. Although United wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as they are. Had they back in 1991 locked themselves in a fixed price 10 year Shirt deal, and outscource all merchandising/commerical operations. But yes City didnt afford their super squad organically. However it should've been the simplest route for EFC to begin generating more cash. Alas it's now just another revenue stream tapped and sold off (at least for 10 years)

The accountants are right – if we have negative EBITDA then cash has to come from somewhere. When we were buying Fellaini and Yakubu we simply borrowed it. This was not sustainable.

However, Keith is also right that we do not run a business model that requires us to continually sell our best players, and nor do we do so unless they put in a transfer request. In some of the past years we have had positive EBITDA – we do not have a structural deficit, although we may get squeezed from time to time. And of course, when we do get our hands on cash, the banks may ask us to hand some or all of it over (á la Arteta).

Our business model is not fucked. We have a transfer kitty of net zero. We can pay our wages. If we are well managed on the field we can stay in the Premier League indefinitely because our income is above the average (just). The Sky contract will go up 30% next season (insanely in my view but there it is) – this will of course be blown entirely on higher wages all round, but it will keep the business afloat for a bit longer. The longer term danger is how do we replace our current players when they devalue and age when we have no transfer kitty? I am hoping that transfer fees will gradually fade away but I have predicted this for years (wrongly). Eventually I will be right. In which case all we need is enough money to pay market wages (like now).

All of which is pretty dull and depressing. But we are not a selling club in the derogatory sense. Yes, we sometimes sell when we don't want to – but by-and-large, our business model does not depend on it.

"MILAN (Reuters) - A group of Chinese investors will buy a minority stake in Inter Milan, becoming the second-biggest shareholder of Italy's top football club, and a deal has been reached with China Railway Construction Corp to build a new stadium for the team.

China Railway Construction would pay $600 million (386.3 million pounds) for a 15 percent stake in the club."

What a tart Kenwright is.

What about when we have £24m of debt falling due within one year and no offer from a bank to refinance or roll over the credit?

What happens then?

Same with Abramovich of course.

We are talking about deck-chairs here. And there might be an iceberg ahead. But we're still afloat and and a top four, maybe five, place this season earned on the football field will have the 'investors' lined up along Goodison Road, even on a match day with the rat food strewn all around them.

And, as I've renewed my season ticket, I'll be there to see it.

Incidentally, so much for ground-share.

Perhaps we should take a leaf from your book and do nothing. Buy a ticket and sit in a pool of filth — all of our own making. Then shrug our shoulders and accept the 'inevitable'.

"What's the point of even trying?" — I hear you say. Sentiments echoed across the Goodison board room.

1. Ensuring the Academy thrives and brings through enough (?) local and foreign/lower league scouted youngsters (whether to improve us or sell at aprofit)
2. Looking down for more Cahills.

Our only realistic hopes, I think, at the moment.

God, it's depressing when you see how far we've fallen and how our expectations have been ground down by years of mediocity and bad business management.

Phil, is it really years of mediocrity and bad business management? Clubs like countries wax and wane in their fortunes and we have been in a wane phase for a long time now. The assertion that we've waned only under the present board is just incorrect. We waned for many reasons the major one which was having a mega successful club next door for so long, there is only so much football revenue in one city. Before Sheikdom and the debt mountain, United and City were never great together as far as I can remember.

The reason to buy the ticket is the only reason that the club exists in the first place, and continues to do so. With all its ups and downs, EFC actually delivers good football, sometimes as good as it gets.

And that's why a football club isn't a 'business'. Damn right ours could be better managed, but ... Take DK for example. It may or may not have been a sound business proposition – I've no idea, and wouldn't wish to reopen a debate long gone and buried. But was that 'debate', conducted by the fans, based on 'business' principles? Was it hell. Leave OUR city?!!! The city that can't even mention its own name.

As for the "pool of filth" – a phrase I would shy away from using myself – I have to repeat that given the choice, I would never go to Goodison Park again. But I don't have that choice because that's where the football's played. And I want to be in the crowd.

So, what's the point of trying? If I won £100m on the Euro raffle tonight, there would still be nothing I could do myself. And although I take nothing that Bill and Co say at face value (I trust Moyes - his God is too vengeful for him to be a businessman or politician), I think they're stuck in the middle of something they can't control. And, in that situation, making good or bad decisions is a toss of a coin. Most businesses fail.

"And the genie of the lamp didst visit the City of Manchester Stadium, and he saw that it was good. And he did call it Etihad. And lo, he looked unto the west and saw a bright blue light in the skies, and asked, 'I wonder if I can find a decent chip shop there?'"

Take that business plan to the bank and ask them for a new stadium. You never know, it might work.

And yet we finish ahead of Liverpool.

I'm off to the Bar Platja. Kindly direct your responses there.

Maybe the Grand Old lady is the future but she will need more than a cosmetic lick of blue paint; people will look at the lack of corporate boxes but the club scores own goals with epic failures: How many times have we ran out of pies, sausage rolls, hot dogs and hot and cold beverages??? This might seem trivial when everyone is focused on the bigger picture. But the fact is many Evertonians come into Goodison Park and, despite the pounds in their pocket, simply can't spend them.

YOU said we are only a couple of players off challenging for Champions League places. (A squad capable of that would also have improved domestic cup prospects.)

YOU said that growth must be organic and sustained and is only likely to follow on from some success on the field.

So, from those two statements we can conclude that... the Board need to invest in the team (at least) to halt the current decline. Now, if a couple of players is all that is required.... how much are you expecting to pay for a couple of players? You are saying we need £300 million. Is that how much a couple of players would cost us? The success they would bring us plus the expected hike in TV revenues should take care of their wages so £30 million should be sufficient for a couple of good prospects. If they were young enough the players would have some resale value and the increased success would increase the value of the club overall, so it isn't an outrageous gamble (based on your statements).

Yet again you undermine your credibility as someone prepared to countenance anything but their own fixed view of the administration of EFC with the wholly 'subjective and opinionated' insinuation that no-one could do anything to halt the 'wane' of the club.

When you calm down and use your manners I'll explain the rest for you.

As for manners, it was you who said most ToffeeWebbers lacked intelligence and who shot down others' arguments for being subjective and opinionated.

By the way, there's another interview on YouTube where Arteta mentions the first few reasons again as to why he left but strangely the need for Everton to sell isn't mentioned this time.

His other one is to declare he's 'retired undefeated'!!

However, if you take the headline figure of £6m increase per year, that was based on a high occupancy rate of the stadium, and certain assumptions made about spend of fans on tickets, and secondary revenue (food & beverages, merchandise). Remember, there was no secondary revenue like gigs etc, unlike the Kings Waterfront which was designed to be as busy as possible (the sliding pitch wasn't to make the grass grow better).

Now transport planners these days have excellent trip-planning software, far advanced from the crap I saw at the turn of the millennium, and no doubt Everton has address information for it's ST holders, and many occasional buyers.

As someone who was abroad during the DK period, did Everton commission any research into how people access Goodison Park? I don't recall they did. We know anecdotal evidence suggests Goodison has a high proportion of walk up and public transport use (no surprise given location and CPZ enforcement), but I would wager any trip planning model with interchange penalties, including Park & Ride etc, given the location, could have painted a very bleak picture about the overall journey time metric.

If a fan is on the cusp about whether to renew / go at all, it may have been a risky decision. I've said before that after approval, there would be a couple of years to get things right, but as with other major developments, these are often expensive and I don't think Tesco would've been picking up the tab.

If ever you get the chance to visit Dublin you should do a tour of the stadium. As well as being a top class stadium, and the ground having a lot of history in it's own, right, it is very interesting to see how it is slap bang in the middle of a very built up residential area. An intercity and commuter rail line also runs right behind the Hill 16 End. This makes it harder to imagine how the stadium could have been redeveloped so well and how the Association managed to host a number of big music concerts each year in the middle of such a residential area.To give you an idea of the types of concerts, the stadium has hosted the Irish legs of U2 and westlife concerts, which are huge.

With football stadia in Britain, you don't seem to get this type of extra revenue. The odd northern club like Wigan see to double up on their ground with the local Rugby League team but apart from West Ham hosting the odd boxing match, the grounds don't get used for this type of commercial use.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that both the redevelopment of Goodison, or the completion of the DK project if it had happened, would be dependent mostly on paying football fans for revenue. The cynic in me would find it hard to see how we would or could get permission to use the ground for anything else.

You see, Dennis, its a football club, not a chip shop.

Tagging 4,000 onto the Park End at a reasonable cost isn't beyond the wit of man, put ice cream vendors and the like in the old obstructed areas.

Be a bloody start wouldn't it?

I don't for one minute think those early pioneers could have envisioned the turnover of the clubs now, lead by broadcasting rights, but I don't think they'd be entirely surprised either.

You see, no matter how much we may hanker after the old days of a more level playing field, we are very much in the realms of big business now - with some football clubs being valued in excess of US$2 bn, that same club now signing a shirt deal with GM worth £30m per year, looking to launch an IPO to pay down some of it's £500m debt, and pocket a tidy profit for the owners.

So actually, you're right in a way - it's a football club, not a chip shop.

It's hardly an achievement.

Great post, I've always wanted to visit Croke Park - just never got round to it. However it does seem quite a stadium. Regarding your comment:

"With football stadia in Britain, you don't seem to get this type of extra revenue."

I'd disagree. Old Trafford gets Rugbly League games and concerts. City of Manchester gets lots of concerts. Even the Reebok stadium does alright. I'd say most new builds and newly developed stadiums get a reasonable amount of non football income. The key is a) to have a modern stadium and b) get it the recognised as a venue for other events.

I usually keep out of the 'business' threads and will in the future because they are loaded with opinion masquerading as fact. With football at least we know we all have our own point of view.

And speaking of which, its possibly the first time I've ever heard an Evertonian describe finishing above Liverpool as 'hardly an achievement'. See what happens when you bring a bit of football into a business thread? Logic gets thrown out the window.

I think some people are trying to point out (me included) that there is hard evidence in the public domain that Everton has had to cure a short term liquidity crisis through the sale of players. This isn’t opinion by the way, it is fact, verified by an independent third party and presented in the accounts.

Everton went from generating a relatively healthy cash surplus in 2005 to a net outflow of cash by 2011, primarily as a result of an exponential increase in wages over this period, one which we couldn’t afford. This spending spree was funded through increased broadcasting revenue and debt. As I said above, at its worse, after the credit crunch, it resulted in £24m of debt being due within 12 months and Everton having no means of paying it back, or refinancing it.

This position was only satisfied by the sale of players in the summer of 2011. This ability to sell players and repay debt is clearly referenced by Elstone in the Directors report, signed off by the Auditors.

Therefore, it doesn’t really matter what has been communicated through the media with regard to the reasons for player sales. The facts are in black and white for everyone to see at Companies House. Why would we bring subjectivity into the debate when we have hard evidence?

I'm quite sure that every word in every document in Companies House is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and that Appy Arry is no good at sums.

No doubt the sale of players has 'kept us afloat'.

The ones in question, according to your post (re summer 2011), will be Vaughan, Beckford, Yakubu and Arteta. (I'll leave Rooney and Lescott out of this).

The what? £5m that the first three raised must have helped but I can't imagine that you are saying that Moyes wanted to keep them for footballing reasons.

So we have Arteta's move and the £10m it brought. The accountants must have been considerably happier than Moyes was, that is - unless you're suggesting that something completely different happened to what most people believe happened. Arteta requested a transfer, asking Arsenal to pay him less than he was getting at at EFC. Must admit, it does seem odd. How else to explain those events?

I'll leave conspiracy theorists to work out how that could have happened - 6am meetings at Watford Gap services and all, but 'reasons for players sales' seem fairly clear in this case.

So, here's how the logic works.

Because we have sold players, we have, so far, serviced our debts.

Some players would be sold anyway, and their sales are part of that process (presumably we insure against injury rendering them worthless in that sense)

So its down to Arteta. Did he jump, or was he pushed?

Believe me Richard, there isn't a line written anywhere in Companies House that is going to answer that question.

Opinions please.

On the day itself, the transfer apparently "stalled" in the mid afternoon, and then it was Arteta who got it round by agreeing to the pay cut, and hey presto, deal done just before the deadline (i.e. no time to reinvest).

Now here's the thing. Arteta's contract with Arsenal has a provision to increase his wages in the second term to bring him to at least parity with what he was on at Everton. This was widely reported in the red tops sports pages a couple of months back. Given Wenger is no mug I find this kind of contract strange, to the point I don't believe it. If it is true, then the £10k a week drop in wages could easily be offset by an additional half a million on the signing on fee.

I still find it amusing that people believe transfers happen on the last day of the transfer window. A few years ago I got a tip from someone in the game about a whole series of transfers due to happen in a particular window - the big one of which was Anelka from Bolton to Chelsea. Not surprised that someone involved in the game might know, but a little surprised to be told this almost 2 months before. Of the around 10 deals he mentioned, around 7 came off. He'd even mentioned the fee for some of them.

So in Arteta's case, I think the club needed a sale, and he was a saleable asset, especially given his age, and the size of his contract (which he'd been given less than 2 years before). Everton again were without Europe, and I believe that given Arsenal's interest a bid was invited, and Arteta was happy to go. I don't believe he wanted to go - he certainly looked happy enough slamming in that last minute penalty at Blackburn in his final appearance.

With this club's track record in selling players when it suits them (which is fine, but no need for the some of the underhand stuff a la Speed), then I'm not naturally predisposed to believe everything they say. Clubs do of course need to keep some things under wraps - they are in a competitive business, but with our current custodians, if they say the sky is Blue, I still have to look out of the window.

'Arteta's contract with Arsenal has a provision to increase his wages'.

Access to such privileged information must be pretty rare. Between God, him and his agent at a guess. Red top journalists no doubt have their own ways of getting in there, but I generally don't believe what I read in the papers.

We are well and truly into the realm of conspiracy theory here.

And that cash surplus in 2005 was the result of selling Rooney and not spending the money, without looking at the accounts my bet is that we would have made a loss that year and it was only his sale that made the Club look in a healthy position.

My assertion is that Arteta didn't ask for the transfer, but once Everton agreed a fee with Arsenal, was happy to go.

The whole pay cut thing is bollocks. More shite put out to try to assuage the fans' feelings. I was at the game on his return when he was playing for Arsenal, and sure enough, a small section of the crowd booed him. Job done.

In all seriousness though, Everton are a shambles. No way should a club of our stature be forced to feed of Rangers scraps (albeit good scraps) and be forced to buy back a player we once owner, all because we couldn't pay his wages in the 1st place.

Thank God Moyes continues to paper over Kenwright's cracks.

If you do the beach message, take a pic and send it in here. I doubt Bluekipper would post it...

Hey - a pat on the back for digging your heels in, but if you are expecting someone to give you an A4 sheet stating that "Everton FC were totally skint and needed to sell Arteta asap". Then you will be waiting a long time.

I think you should step back and look at how things were for Everton FC - the club was cash strapped and was still recovering from the Kirkby fiasco - by all accounts BK had put ALL his eggs into that basket . Selling players to survive was not an option - it was now a necessity.

It is laughable but Everton FC is a business - and we as supporters are not let in on the decisions that BK and his board room chums make. I think it would be safe to say that they were probably up all night praying that the Arteta sale went through.