Kenwright pledges funds for Martinez

Could see us with 35m to spend if Fellaini does go.

I hope RM realizes very soon that Osman is surplus to requirements.

Even if that's two pound fifty, its not as bad as it could've been: most were predicting Baines and/or Fellaini going, and the new manager getting a fraction of it.

Best case:
there's "the Fer money" or enough for a couple of loans, frees or bargains and everyone stays.

Worst case: players leave and the manager gets all the money to re-invest.

Assuming its true (it's the Mail, and it's BK) then fair enough I'd say – at least by our recent standards.

Anyway he had a lot of interesting things to say and he mentioned that he had spent quite a bit of time studying Everton's scouting system which he said was excellent. Apparently a lot of it is based on a fairly sophisticated statistical analysis which identifies players. The aim of the system was that it would be in place whoever was the manager and that knowledge of players wouldn't disappear if the scouting staff up and left.

Kenwright also said that Martinez also has the transfer money that was set aside for Moyes before he left, which is believed to be a further £12-15M. Don't forget that Moyes, Neville, Mucha, Fellaini and Heitinga were on the biggest wages and with them gone, this would save the club many millions of pounds.

I estimate that Martinez will have £40-£45M after the sale of Fellaini and Heitinga. So how Mr stupid and Mr thick came to the conclusion Martinez wouldn't be getting any money to spend is anybody's guess, but then you can be as thick as cow dung and still father a child these days so anything is possible.

It almost feels like he's putting him in the shop window.

Don't be deluded to think Wigan are going to let their prize assets go on the cheap, this is whelan we're talking about after all. Moses hardly had any time left on his crontract, think he only had 6 months left on it, I was amazed Chelsea came up with 9 million.

Like you've said though, there's some real talent across the world and we shouldn't just be looking at Wigan players that are over priced

Martinez: "Fantastico, now I 'ave...ow you say..plenty ackers to spend on mucho bueno players"

BK: "Er...yeah ha ha..absolutely....I mean obviously we'll have to weigh the bank in with a few quid...and Goodison needs a lick of paint, that won't come cheap...and then there's the compo for your old boss..but I'm sure it'll all work out (Kenwright then puts arm around the handsome young Spaniard)..By the way, did I ever tell you about when I met Elvis? Great guy!! (weeps for 15 minutes). He had three testicles you know - absolutely true! He called them the three amigos - HONEST! By the way, you know the Empire State Building? My granddad's mate used to own it, he won it in a game of five card br...."

Martinez' smile slowly vanishes and is replaced by a look of pure, naked fear.

I believe the problem is that Bill has 'previous' when it comes to telling porkies, and there have been some rum transfer fiascoes in the past, with the obvious problem that no-one really knows how much money is available... and everyone looks at it as if all transfers are paid lump sum, and staged payments over the length of a contract simply don't exist (they do!).

But let's all try to be a bit more 'real' about what we say on here please. If your cynicism is a product of your disbelief, rather than simply a case of being unable to read or comprehend, please make that clear in your responses.

Think Diami and Fer would be very good signings like you say. Diami has a £3.5 million buy out clause and Fer would cost us round about £8 million, very good buisness if you ask me, both in their mid-20s with their best years in front of them.

I think the 'truth' for all us long-suffering fans is that we trust no "intentions" But! I'm willing to give BK the benefit of doubt (we're still in the PL!).

So I'm getting behind RM, and I actually welcome this new approach with that new-fangled 'attacking' and 'positivism' approach! I guess I'll deserve to be burned at the stake in a year or so... :P

Please leave the giant nice badge on our ground.

The looking for a billionaire story and "my blood runs blue" is tiresome. His Champions League comment yesterday was crass and inappropriate.

Reason to be concerned?

As long as each year ends in a ~£6M loss, the less likely a sale becomes. BK knows that. Makes you think, doesn`t it?

So freebies and persuading rival clubs to loan us players is the order of the day until we sell Felli or a new buyer appears on the horizon. Kenwright is playing his usual 'every penny that we can give the manager/ card and it works every time. If I was Martinez I'd keep my powder dry and try to wok with the people already at the club before splashing any cash, because should it go pear shaped and he needs reinforcements in January there will be no funds available and he will pay the price for BK's Grimm Tales.

The new deal will bring us between £20m and £25m more per season (I'm not clear on the exact figure as I'm basing it off numbers I saw before the overseas deal was concluded) and we won't get the first tranche until August.

Don't forget that a large chunk is already accounted for by the rolling debt the club is carrying from one season to the next so the £12m kitty I've seen bandied about (less ~£1.5m to £2m for Martinez's compensation) sounds about right.

if Kenwright is true to his word, what the new TV deals mean is that Martinez would get ALL of the money from player sales which, Bilyaletdinov aside, has not been the case at EFC for a while now. That in itself is good news.

Leave us to live the dream, if only until September 1st.

Surely there can be no-one left who even believes a word he says??

I thought us Scousers were no-nonsense types who could sniff out a blagger a mile off?

BK is the biggest blagger of all!

Plus, what we saving from pulling out of our transfer deals in the last window.

And I'm not sure I believe making a small loss each year is any impediment to the club being sold. I believe it's more of a strategy of avoiding paying tax on any profit.

The only way that this is a tax advantage is if someone is happy to loan us the money through an offshore entity, so they don't have to pay UK tax on the interest. Hmmm.

What next Bill? Not that one about x number of interested parties again, seriously you phoney get give it a rest

No one knows who will stay or go. It is all speculation though it looks to me as if Everton accept Fellaini may go for a significant fee and see the proceeds as the foundation money needed to invest in the team. No one knows what the net amount from this deal but there will be something - assuming there is a buyer out there. My guess is Heitinga will go as well. Wages will fall with Neville off the books and to a lesser extent Mucha and Hitz.. All three have served the club well in different ways. Many of the people criticising Heitinga probably voted for him as player of the year not too long ago; anyway he is 29 and clearly in the market for a final move to the lucrative world of Turkish football.

In many respects Moyes and Martinez seem to be similar wheeler dealers. Moyes sold Lescott at a high price and then bought three players of whom Distin proved the best purchase. A surprise. The disappointing Bily was sold and Jelly came. He scored then went off the boil. I suspect we may see a similar pattern under Martinez. is this a bad thing? Do people want Venkys or Mark Hughes? it should also be acknowledged that Kenwright has gone about this search for a new manager in a sensible way and this has enhanced Everton's reputation.

No doubt the last comment will provoke the people Stewart complained about.

Fellaini is definitely being touted and IMO he was planned to go in January but it didnt go through hence the Fer deal collapsed.

In addition to that we should get 20 to 25 million in extra TV revenue less the 1.5 for Martinez and less 10 million to cover losses.

Get Johnny on his bike to nowhere with Mucha, Neville and Moyes gone should release about 10.5 million a year less about 2.5 million for Martinez' salary should give us a reasonable pot to play with.

However given Bill's previous and his cronies BVI connections don't expect all spare funding to find it's way onto the pitch.

I don't really rate any of the wigan players that highly but if we could get Sinclair, Fer and Negredo (or another prolific striker) I would be delighted.

Btw although our young keeper is highly rated we do need a "Howard" replacement too.

Mark Frere- One of the articles mentioning Sinclair's City wages. Obviously, the validity of this is unknown, but this is just one of the articles I've seen mentioning the same 40k/week figure.

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Scott-Sinclair-s-torrid-time-Manchester-City/story-18855718-detail/story.html#axzz2VTO5PS6o

Out of the blue a thread finishes and suddenly all the usual contributors are on the new thread and those slow and lacking in awareness are left behind!

Is some sort of subliminal signal given; or is it telepathy; or editorial adjustment.Perhaps there an inner sanctum that you have to apply to enter?

I'm sure the editors will explain!

But the modern PL is a totally different kettle of fish and the longer BK remains in charge the closer we will get to paying the ultimate price for his mis-direction, he is a dreamer like most fans are but doesn't have the necessary financial clout to be able to alter the way the club operates. A former corner shop owner may not necessarily be able to run a multi national supermarket chain, even though many of the principles are the same.

This year will see Bil celebrate his 68th birthday and he will have been in charge for nearly 14 years, what progress has the club really made in that time? We just go on from one season to the next without any long-term plan and we all live in hope that a sugar daddy will appear so that the club can truly move forwards.

I don't see Bill being in any rush to retire from his feted position and the kudos that goes with being Chairman of a PL club and therefore even if some individual or group came along he may not relinquish his position easily.

The full extent of Bill's legacy will not be known until a new set of people have taken over but I'm pretty sure the legacy will not be a pretty one.

Unless Martinez and Heitinga can come to some agreement our Dutchman could be off for perhaps around £4m and his wages will be off our books. This takes the kitty to around £14m. There are a few free agents knocking about and we could look at a loan or two. If Martinez's scouting network is as good as we hope he could get a few decent young players with £14m.

IF Fellaini's clause is activated by a CL club and he decides to go then the kitty would be closer to the £40m mark. If he gets all of this to spend we could see some very interesting transfer activity! That said, I would prefer to keep our current squad together and add some depth with bargain young buys, loans and freebies.

I wouldn't get drawn into paying over the odds for British players as Liverpool has done. We don't have any home grown quotas to worry about and even if we did we already have a core of academy players. Sinclair sounds like an interesting option. He has pace and could be available at a knock down price.

The good thing is we will not be seen as desperate to sell, so if anyone wants to try and take our stars we can stand our ground and demand exorbitant fees.

Goal understands that Arsenal made the club-record bid on Wednesday, the same day that Roberto Martinez was appointed the new Everton manager.

It is believed that Fellaini's buy-out clause is £22m for a top-four club, and £24m for a club that finishes outside the Champions League places.

So BK had already done the deal or is that why we had to wait until 4pm for the press conference?

I don't believe a thread of this article is true and if it is why are we still looking at a debt of £45mil? Surely with all the new tv money that debt had decreased? Unless our operating costs are ridiculous, for a premier league side this really shouldn't be a huge concern when we're talking of yearly revenues increasing by around £50mil per team. We'd only have to survive, as we are for a single year to be debt free, right?

I think we should sell Fellani, preferably abroad and then hopefully spend around £40mil on at least another 6 players:
1 keeper, 1 central defender, 1 attacking mid, 1 defensive mid and 2 strikers.

Is the debt manageable? That's the question.

And if you run $6M losses concurrently for 4-5 years in a row, the larger sum and the interest inherent makes it compoundingly more difficult for show a profit....

Is "compoundingly" a word?

Richard's question is a very legitimate one. I for one pray we get our finances in order and if that means restraining ourselves a bit I'm all for it. I see nothing wrong, with the current squad we have, paying down our debt with Felliani money and added TV revenue income, leaving say $15M for RM to find some gems while nicking into our debt substantially.

Financially strapped football clubs generally have a one-way direction - down.

Grantchester and Earl should also be held accountable just as much as BK, because their the ones with the biggest personal fortunes.

By the way, i'm not defending BK in anyway

The Bosman rule has been the death of mobility in football.

To say on the day the guy walks in the door. What a fucking clown, you don't welcome somebody by heaping premature expectations on their shoulders.

I used to be more passive to Kenwright than most on this website, but in recent weeks...........

If, for example, the Board elect to use £10m of the new TV deal to pay off the most recent Vibrac loan so that it doesn't have to take out another one in August (thereby avoiding at least £1m lost to interest) then I think that's prudent.

(Of course, there's the issue that it's the Board's fault that the loan was needed in the first place and that the transfer kitty is suffering as a result but what's done is done.)

Lord Grantchester is worth £1.2 Billion. It is believed from albeit obscure reports that he does want to take over/have an active part in the club, but (and this quote is genuine) `He (Grantchester) will not take an active part(ie, investment) in the running of the club "while True Blue Holdings (Kenwright) are in a position of authority" (ie, major shareholder/chairman). Which I think bears out to an extent his reluctance imo to lend Kenwright the money to buy Fer et al (on the strength of the TV money) when we where so near to a Champions League spot.

Now why would you give someone with the power and NO money a leg up?? When you can just wait till he implodes.

Kenwright might not be your choice as Chairman but until we get a Russian or Arabian owner, who would you all like? That guy at Newcastle, or him at Wolves, or him at Wigan, or him at Sheffield Utd, or him at Liverpool, or him at Hartlepool, or him at Aston Villa, or him at Hearts, or him at Darlington, or him at...

Roberto, make a statement of intent,. Tell Fellaini he stays because Everton is going to be something special next season. To accept that he is going is defeatist and small club mentality.

The owners of Wigan, Newcastle & Villa have all invested many millions into their clubs, don't confuse League position with poor ownership - the two are not necessarily linked.

Assuming you take in good faith that Moyes was planning on staying at Goodison until this opportunity (ahem) unexpectedly presented itself and he did say consistently through the second half of the season that he was making plans for next season, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that Kenwright had made some sort of provisional agreement about summer spends, particularly as an all-important new contract was due to be signed? Moyes had made it clear that he needed funds to take the club forward and was making all the noises that suggested he had a plan for the summer.

I'm not going into a numbers game here, in fact I'm just leading up to veering off onto a hitherto unmentioned tangent. Given that plans were in place (assuming the above to be correct), wouldn't Moyes have been compiling a little black book of potential summer transfer targets and done his infamously meticulous homework on each of these targets, knowing roughly what budget we had? I would say that was a reasonable assumption. And now that he has moved on to sunnier climes would he be taking this little black book with him? Now his budget is in the stratosphere (comparatively) and we are not seen as a real competition in the league, would he leave that book here, bearing in mind he will have compiled his list whilst being paid good money by Everton and may feel some semblance of loyalty and maybe, just maybe a bit of an affinity to the club?

If so, I would suggest Martinez has a good rifle through this book if he wants to initially maintain continuity as Moyes wasn't too bad himself sifting through the bargain bucket. I know he would want to bring in his own guys but maybe just for this transfer window we could reap the benefits of two good bargain hunters unpolished diamonds swell our ranks.

Do I win the optimist of the day award?

You say:
"The owners of Wigan, Newcastle & Villa have all invested many millions into their clubs, don't confuse League position with poor ownership — the two are not necessarily linked"

What do you mean? They've all had (poor?) league position — do you agree? The 'poor' is my addition here. If you agree, are you saying they have 'poor ownership' (your words) (or is it Everton you say have poor leadership and if so how do you explain good league position?) and poor league position? if so, does that reinforce my point that you don't want him at.....etc. Can you illuminate for me?

If we have two bad seasons, or God forbid get relegated, we have no future. We are completely reliant on T.V. income and gate receipts.

The long term finances are also deteriorating season by season, as shown by our balance sheet.

As a business, we have no credit rating, we can discuss all day whose fault this is, but that doesn't really matter, the club have no plans for the future, and we a living hand to mouth.

I don't give a damn who is in the boardroom, as long as the club will be around in the top division for many generations to come.

Goodison Park is a relic - that would be a good place to start.

Guesswork, and illogical guesswork at that..

The point of this type of contractual clause is to allow the player to have leverage to extricate themselves from said contract.

Once a club offers this amount, then Everton cannot prevent a sale. There is absolutely no point in any club offering anything beyond the value of the clause, as the player can go to any club who meet this requirement. Adding a couple of mill to the clause value gives no benefit whatsoever.

I sincerely hope he chooses to stay, but if the media stories about Arsenal making a bid are true I think it is almost inevitable that he will go. Perhaps Martinez can convince him that CL football is a possibility, but if he moves he is guaranteed that straight away and he gets paid more for that privilege!

I hate to see a world class player leave, but on the plus side we get a massive wage off our books and £22m in for Martinez to spend. If Leroy Fer is still available for £6.8m, a third of Fellaini's fee, we have a classy replacement in the same mould as well as enough cash left over for several other players. I just hope a decision is reached quickly, one way or the other, so we can move ahead with our plans for next season!

All very true, well said.
The main problem is that BK obviously has no business acumen. His own production company only made £660 last year and he has took EFC from making a small profit to heavy losses, £9M last year, even though Sky money has come on board and he has sold all the assets off. He is an unmittigated disaster.

My greatest fear is that all the evidence suggests he will be there another 15 years and the damage he has done will be beyond repair.

"...Fellaini does have a buy out clause, so if Martinez does choose to cash in on him..."

If the buy-out clause is activated it will be because a club has offered the requisite fee; it will not be Martinez's choice.

Think about that before you imply that fellow Evertonians are "plain stupid".

Yes, maybe I wouldn't want those owners at other clubs...but many of us don't want Kenwright either.

Too many are easily swayed by him being a blue.

Instead of listing the failings at other clubs, can you please list BK's achievements over the last 14 years.

I'm all ears...

Now people seem to band about all the players we have been linked with before as potential signings this summer. I disagree with this thought, there must be a reason we didn't sign them, whether it was a made up story or whatever else it was. I do have a solution, which may take a couple of months to pull off but it would mark Everton as genuine contenders next year for the top 4.

If we sell Fellaini, then we need to invest a lot into the squad, however with a good scouting system and shrewd business we could potentially add real quality. How does this sound? I say these as hypothetical not as the actual players who would cost a lot more now. We sign this summer Demba Ba, Michu, Emmanuelson on loan, Diame, Hoilett, Michael Owen as a marqee signing and Al Habsi.

Look at the cost of these players when they made significant jumps in their career, West Ham paid £4 million, Swansea paid £2 million, Diame free, Hoillett free, Michael Owen, around £15 million to Newcastle, Emmanuelson to Fulham, Al Habsi £3 million. All-in-all, £24 million for those players. We sign players on par with that so to speak and would we be a better team?

All of those types of players are available if you look around hard enough, that's what the scouts are there for. Imagine a squad filled out with first team and squad quality for the price of one player. Personally I would go for that this summer, we would be far the better for it.

However, the deal for the Belgian is not sewn up yet. Even though under the terms of the contract Fellaini signed in November 2011 Everton are obliged to accept the offer on the table from Arsenal, the player and his advisers must still give the move the green light and agree a package with the Gunners.

There is also the possibility that Arsenal's bid could force a counter move from one of Fellaini's other suitors. Chelsea's interest in the midfielder is believed to have dwindled but new Manchester United manager David Moyes could yet sanction a bid for Everton's prize asset that trumps Arsenal's offer.

Moyes is expected to make at least one marquee signing this summer and the most obvious vacancy in the United team is for an authoritative midfielder to pair with Michael Carrick, one that his former charge appears ideally equipped to fill.