It's Now Or Never For Kenwright

Providing transfer fees and wages donÂ’t inflate to even more ridiculous levels (although they probably will) this should be a viable strategy and, frankly, the only way itÂ’s going to happen.

Personally, IÂ’d prefer they invest in upgrading Goodison Park and gradually buy up property around the existing site like Liverpool did to increase the footprint, but thatÂ’s just me.

ItÂ’s the only chance heÂ’s going to get to be able to fund his part in it. HeÂ’s hoping the council put in aswell but obviously he as to come up with some funds aswell and these tv deals is where heÂ’s going to get the cash!

These tv deals have been a god send to Kenwright, with the amount of money coming into the league and to clubs, itÂ’s allowing him to fund transfer moves and it will now give him a chance to finally fu d a stadium!

DonÂ’t forget, when the premier league sell there tv rights to Asia and the Far East aswell, theyÂ’ll be a bigger share of the pot to clubs than just over ٣Bn!

WeÂ’ve got the location sorted - In our city and in our Walton patch, I now fully expect an excellent design with future expandability built in and nothing like the cow shed junk they were planning for Kirkby.

With Liverpool council an enthusiastic partner I can only see our clubs project failing if we were led by a bunch of fools..

ThatÂ’s why I mentioned the next Â’12 monthÂ’ window as being crucial. If we get knocked back at planning stage, I believe the project is once again, dead in the water.

It is my understanding that as it currently stands Gwladys St School will not continue to meet the modern required standards (much like GP). There is a statutory requirement upon LCC to provide a school for the locality. IF this really is so then surely there must be some "mutually acceptable" deal to be done ?
Possibly this is behind the "proposal" to build "New Goodison" in Walton Hall Park.

Personally, I quite like the WHP location, but really still want a properly redeveloped GP. Being the worlds first purpose built football stadium means a great deal to me as a slice of our heritage.

Some time back I did think that the "Innovation Park" site on Edge Lane was absolutely ideal, because it has:
2 railway stations (Wavertree Technology Park & Edge Hill)
M62 5 mins away
Major arterial routes
Large expanse of non-residential surrounds
Is in/close by the L8 and Kensington regeneration zones
And would certainly qualify for EU "Derelict Land Grant" as an ex industrial (brownfield) site.

But despite everything, I still want a redeveloped Goodison Park and I always will.

But, yes, they could certainly submit planning applications within the next year.

My nightmare scenario is he does sod all I.e. no GP redevelopment, no new stadium and minimum investment in the team while he recovers 15 years of back pay (remember he doesnÂ’t, or hasnÂ’t, earned a penny as chairman).

I simply donÂ’t trust him or any of his gang to do the best for EFC.

There will be opposition for years. If, and thatÂ’s a big if it will be years down the road. Kenwright has to bite the bullet and, like the other lot, redevelop.

I like many others have a bevy before and after the game. Where would you go from WHP?

Some will say we have slowly been demising for years, but when you have a man remortgaging his house to buy Everton, then what can we really expect?

I would be very surprised if WHP was given the go-ahead because there is going to be loads of opposition to this project.

Like you, Colin, I could never trust Mr Chairman, and your nightmare scenario is really quite conceivable to me!

As far as IÂ’m concerned, I have more blue running through my veins than them.

Last year 2 players in the January window and we make the top 4. God forbid we risk ٣ million for a chance at 㿞 million more hell no.

Same BS this summer... all he cares about is staying up and pocketing the increases.

IÂ’m with you. The man is incompetent. WouldnÂ’t it be just like EFC to go down next season and miss out.

For Tony Abrahams (9) to slate Kenwright for having the temerity to mortgage his house in order to buy a greater share of the club... Really? How dare someone put their house on the line to help manoeuvre us away from the chairman we then had and universally wanted rid of. The utter bastard!

Earlier, Colin Glassar (7) reminds us that Kenwright has never taken a penny out of the club – unlike any other chairman of his peers. The shitbag!

Colin and Tony are far from alone so are not meant to be singled out but are just highlighted on this particular thread as demonstrating a trait we see all over this site and others regarding Kenwright and have started to see in the same fashion against Martinez in recent months.

By all means criticise his failures, not least of which being the shambolic fiasco that was Kings Dock (shudders) but why portray his positives as negatives just because youÂ’ve built up such an irrational hatred of the guy?

A few draws and a near miss against the league leaders has taken the heat out of feelings about the managerÂ’s position but the fact remains we have won only SIX games all season. By any standard that stinks but letÂ’s all fall out over a possible ground move. No thanks.

And neither do I along with thousands of other Evertonians but you are free to do so.

Ok, youÂ’re a cynic. You are also 100% correct in your observation.

Spurs are already planning for their new ground which will attract a lot of interest from overseas investors, not to mention West Ham moving into the iconic Olympic stadium, I am sure Gold and Sullivan will be rubbing their hands in the money they will make when they sell out.

As we all know revenue is King and while we have managed over the last decade or so to challenge for European football, I fear unless we can build a new stadium attracting new owners then the slippery slide will start. Mind with RM in charge we may have to see how much the parachute payments are for a side going down.

However, the core business is advancing a successful football club (we are successful in the sense that we have been in existence for over 130 years, most of that period we have played in the top flight).

This is not a rhetorical question: Has anyone ever heard BK or any of his chums speak out about what their ambition is for the club and the stadium? If it is to muddle along and exist as one of the also-rans of the Premier League so be it. It would be nice to be told, though.

SFX: Family fortunes wrong answer noise,

But nothing and I always feel duty-bound to point out the following when I smell Â’irrationalÂ’ apologist.

Stan and Ollie werenÂ’t astute and made a lot of mistakes.

Frank Spencer wasnÂ’t astute and made a lot of mistakes.

Tommy Cooper wasnÂ’t astute and made a lot of mistakes.

But they werenÂ’t liars either and there is a fucking big difference.

As for Â’irrational hatredÂ’, thereÂ’s nothing irrational about hating someone who lies to you, especially when they do it over and over and over again and treat you like an idiot dupe.

(if you want to know the difference between Â’not astute and made mistakesÂ’ and Â’fucking liarÂ’, IÂ’ll be happy to supply a long list of fat-headÂ’s lies and bullshit).

Martyn (21), I think a lot of people live and breath Everton, and to say that Kenwright has made mistakes is utter garbage. HeÂ’s robbed Peter to pay Paul, and the reason is simple, heÂ’s spent fuck all! But itÂ’s kept him in charge and kept Everton as paupers, unlike the man himself who will make a lot of money if the club is ever sold.

Not bad for a man who has suppossedly got our best HIGH INTEREST at heart!

Imagine a shrewd businessman and an Evertonian in charge of our great club with all this TV revenue heading our way:

Invest in the team and aim for glory not just survival
Revamp the stadium or even a new one
Invest in all revenue streams corporate and merchandising. Imagine being able to see and buy Everton gear in shops around the world
Invest in your loyal fans..... Yes, ticket prices should fall, not just be frozen

I think a forward thinking board would do all of the above (except maybe reduce prices unless forced) and a board of such led by an Evertonian would do it with the number one goal of getting the team to win things.

So we have the TV money, we have the Evertonian Chairman (albeit probably not in charge) so I wonder where it will all go wrong?

The way Liverpool council fell over backwards to give Liverpool permission to rip up Stanley Park for their new stadium was disgusting, whereas we have to scratch around on industrial estates in the middle of nowhere.

I think redeveloping Goodison will leave us with a patched up stadium and will look hodge potch when finished. Plus building a new stadium doesnÂ’t lower gate receipts and capacity as we can still be at Goodison while the stadium is being built.

As an aside, will someone get Terry Leahy in to sort the marketing side of this club.

Kenwright tells us about the unemployed fella in the council flat in Manchester? Why? And also that we would have been sold to Shiek Mansour, but for not having a new ground. But isnÂ’t this the same Evertonian who told us that the money for the Kings Dock was ring-fenced?p>Not getting that ground has possibly affected Everton, just as much as the European ban did in the eighties.

"By all means criticise his failures, not least of which being the shambolic fiasco that was Kings Dock (shudders) but why portray his positives as negatives just because you’ve built up such an irrational hatred of the guy?"

His positives may be few but they don’t IMHO deserve to be portrayed as something to sneer at when there are clear negatives to highlight without rewriting history.

And I am not that easily side-tracked.

As for the board not taking any money out of the club – I don’t believe that to be true. We pay around ٟM a year in interest on a loan we have from some company in the BVI. It is a fact that certain directors have business interests in the BVI, cannot imagine that this is simply a coincidence. We’ve had this ’revolving’ loan for many years and why we need it given the massive TV money is beyond me. So that’s ٟM a year (at least)going out of the club to god knows who. That’s before we start with the 㿃M a year costs for the lawn mowers...

Sadly re the new TV deal I can only see the average wages and bonus payments for players and managers going through the roof after this, just like with the last deal. It won’t be long before some players are earning 𧺬k/week just in wages! Players like Sterling, although good, have only been playing for 5 minutes and already want over 𧴜k/week! Whilst the clubs are awash with money, the players will just be paid more and ever earlier.

The bid from sky is so over the top I hope people were fired – a 70% increase when there was basically no competition! Surely all it would have taken was for the head of Sky to call the head of BT and decide what each wanted and bid accordingly – and thereby save themselves a couple of billion pounds! It looks like sky was shiting it that someone else would join the party and so bid a ridiculous amount. At some point the maths doesn’t make sense anymore and given the sky share price went down 5% after the bid was announced, I’m guessing we’ve reached that point.

I quit Sky last year as I refuse to carry on paying 𧽴+ a year just to watch football (hardly ever watched other channels) -now I go the pub or stream the Everton games (if I’m lucky I’ll go to the odd match live). The whole thing is a joke as most of the Sky money (which comes directly from subscribers) just ends up in the pockets of the players, managers and agents. If Sky halved the prize money the quality would still be the same, only difference would be top players earning 𧴜k/week instead of 𧶀k/week.

Theoretically, with this new deal, each club should be able to halve ticket prices for the fans and still have more cash... Will this happen? Will it fuck.

Your response suggests you have (again) missed or ignored this (I suspect the latter).

As for your spin on positives and negatives – disingenuous nonsense.

If you stroke your dog once in a while, but spend the rest of the time kicking it, don’t expect anyone to be impressed when you tell people "You’re all concentrating on me kicking him, don’t forget I stroke him occasionally too!"

As for me not ’focusing’ on your final paragraph, I’ll repeat (ffs!!) my specific response to it – "As for ’irrational hatred’, there’s nothing irrational about hating someone who lies to you, especially when they do it over and over and over again and treat you like an idiot dupe."

Or maybe you really think this IS an irrational response? (tip, it can only really be irrational or...not).

Brian (39) – "Colin, yes I’ve been starting to scratch my head a bit at Phil Walling’s posts re Martinez. It borders on the pathological, and I wonder what exactly is behind it. I think Professor Eugene Ruane should apply a diagnosis."

’Professor Ruane’ made his diagnosis months ago, decided only madness lies there and has consequently ignored everything from this patient since (and shall continue to – some are simply beyond help).

Basically a picture started to form in my mind of a shouty, Farage-like, saloon-bar lawyer, bellowing half-baked opinions (over and over and over and...) as though they’d been delivered on tablets by Moses.

In the film Bad Day At Black Rock, Spencer Tracy’s one-armed detective character, Macreedy, quietly informs shouty red-neck Ernest Borgnine’s character, Coley Trimble, "You’re not only wrong, you’re wrong at the top of your voice."

Basically I see him as TW’s Coley Trimble.

(nb: by the way, even with one arm, Macreedy whups him).

Up the Toffees!

Good film that, Bad Day at Black Rock. ItÂ’s often a surprise to see American films of that era addressing issues of racism and other prejudices. I caught Inherit the Wind a few months ago on TCM. Another Spencer Tracy of course.

I can imagine BK taking a sup of his cuppa before falling behind his desk and emerging as deluded football chairman croaking the words. "I stood on the Boys Pen you bastards".

In business, people make mistakes all the time even more so when you have no EBITA like EFC, mistakes have clearly been made and, as you say, Kings Dock was the worst in my opinion but with hindsight (like most used on this site) if you could envisage what the TV deal would be in 10 years then we would be there now.

BK’s and EFC’s problems all come back to the simple fact we have no cash flow. He as an individual doesn’t have the money to bankroll us – he has never denied this obvious failing in being Chairman. Please remember at the time of KD the TV revenue was less than a billion (over 3 years), EFC’s EPL status was in a mess and attendances were falling, along with corporate spend at GP at one of its lowest. Add to this the fact Mr Gregg and SFX wanted control of additional revenue streams that KD would bring, and you can see why he made the decision to pull out at the time.

Regrettably, history has proven this to be a disastrous decision but we will only see if BK’s tenure as Chairman is a positive or negative one once we have had 2/5 years of any new owner. In simple terms, we could have done a lot better but, on the flip side, we could have easily done a lot worse.

Teams that have fallen and either gone bankrupt more than the ones that have succeeded. Coventry, Leeds, Birmingham, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Bolton, Leicester, Southampton, West Ham, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Glasgow Rangers, QPR, Swindon, Bradford, Norwich, Barnsley, WBA, Wolves, Blackpool, Burnley, Oldham, Cardiff, Wimbledon, Oxford United, Nottingham Forest, Notts County, Man City, Brighton, Wigan, Hull, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Watford and Charlton all of which have dropped down the leagues – the one thing we haven’t done.

Those that have stood still, like us, are Newcastle (relegated too), Villa and Spurs and the ones that have progressed are Man Utd, Man City (after dropping to League 2), Chelsea, Liverpool (30 mins away from liquidation) and Arsenal.

Prospective is needed on this subject we all want to be in that Top 5 but I’m afraid without cash it’s really hard if not impossible to achieve, and again regrettably not one person or consortium has ever publicly made us aware of the will to even invest or make a bid to buy EFC.

My money would be on us being sold soon and I would expect it to a person or fund from Qatar.

I somehow knew we’d get to this. Be as creative as you wish with your arguments (conveniently ignoring that I acknowledged agreement in some part with you) but you are consistently missing my point. Your dog analogy is erroneous in so much as we are not talking about treat versus punishment. We are talking about judgement of a person based upon their deeds and colouring positive as negative because of a personal opinion of them as a whole.

To accuse anyone of being so one-dimensional as to believe absolutely everything they do is either positive or negative is a juvenile, delusional shortcut to suit one’s own agenda.

It’s rather like saying Eugene Ruane is always a sanctimonious, arrogant, holier-than-thou individual with a god complex. I wholeheartedly believe that is not always the case.

In my experience, I know you won’t take anyone challenging your perspective or offering balance lying down. Why should you? You never misinterpret anything do you? Far less get anything wrong, God forbid. Enjoy your response to this as I don’t have the energy or inclination to engage with you further on it. Pity really, as when you’re being more comedic than sanctimonious I quite enjoy your posts. Have a good day.

"If you stroke your dog once in a while, but spend the rest of the time kicking it, don’t expect anyone to be impressed when you tell people "You’re all concentrating on me kicking him, don’t forget I stroke him occasionally too!" – Brilliant!, may I use it?

Kenwright seems to have many good traits in that he is loyal to the club, not taking all the money he could out of the club, but there are those interesting "business" accounts and write-offs perhaps?

Unfortunately, it seems the owners who subscribe to the old football club ways like remaining patient and loyal to the club and manager are those who don’t have the independent finances to keep up with the multimillion dollar groups and Russian mobst.... I mean businessmen, and oil sheikhs who buy and sell players and managers like suits. Kenwright seems a decent person and not prone to egotistical demands and craziness like the Cardiff and even Hull City owners.

However, it seems that English football is never going backwards to the old style of ownership, so his loyalty to the old ways may be his biggest flaw moving forward. It seems a new stadium is key just to stay competitive but it also seems that Everton are missing the boat on developing a world identity or at least a USA and European identity.

Face it, the USA has the lion’s share of the $$$$ going to football or soccer in TV rights viewing etc. but Everton has little identity here. Tours over here when they occur are not pushed like Chelsea and Man Utd. Supporters groups don’t have conventions and meetings for Everton like they do. We Everton fans over here either are English or, like me, follow the club because a certain player interested us and we became hooked.

Why, with Tim Howard as the face of USA soccer and one of the "beards and faces" of the World Cup, did Everton have no promos or anything over here featuring him and/or Landon Donovan, is beyond me. Why weren’t Mirallas and Lukaku trotted out (Rooney does commercials for goodness sake)? It is reflective of some antiquated idea that a major sponsor is all that is needed when kit deals etc are needed too.

Kenwright should bring in someone to develop a global plan and work on the stadium and with increased revenue from TV deals this looks like the opportune time.

Oh well, for now lets get through this season and move onward. COYB

Yes of course you may, in fact if you use it right now and apply it to the main thrust of your post, you may find yourself reconsidering lines like "Kenwright seems to have many good traits in that he is loyal to the club" and "Kenwright seems a decent person" (nb: every successful con-man ever initially seemed like a decent person).

Lee (51) - "I somehow knew we’d get to this. Be as creative as you wish with your arguments (conveniently ignoring that I acknowledged agreement in some part with you) "

Again, disingenuous deflection (like you, I had a feeling we’d get to this - often happens when a flimsy argument starts to collapse).

Agreement in some part?

He’s either a proven liar or he’s not, there is no ’in some part.’

If you think he is, then your ’yeah but what about the positives?’ stance is meaningless to me (I’ve explained why - see kicking dog).

If you want to argue he’s not, fine - off you go (not holding breath).

Read Alan WilliamsÂ’s at post #50. Kenwright does not have the money to bankroll us, though some seem to think heÂ’s saved us from disaster by keeping hold of Everton.

Everton who won a major honour at lease once, in every decade of their long and very proud history, have won nowt since Bill Kenwright became chairman.

I honestly havenÂ’t saw anything positive during KenwrightÂ’s reign, and I canÂ’t understand why the man splits opinion.

I meant you no offence when I highlighted your comment but there is no misinterpretation as far as I am aware. You said "Some will say we have slowly been demising for years, but when you have a man remortgaging his house to buy Everton, then what can we really expect?" and that could have been meant to say we struggled to get any better in a ’ah, bless him’ fashion and I understand that. You then followed it with "Like you, Colin, I could never trust Mr Chairman, and your nightmare scenario is really quite conceivable to me!" in the same post so it is fair to draw the conclusion that you aren’t particularly impressed with Kenwright on any level, including that of him mortgaging his house to raise funds for our club. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but at the time was he challenged and criticised for ousting Peter Johnson?

Be honest now, as much as we love our club, how many of us would put our houses on the line? I hope it doesn’t make me less of an Evertonian to admit in all honesty that I would not go that far. Admittedly, my house would barely pay a couple of players’ weekly salaries so it’s not apples with apples but I hope you get the premise of my point.

It seems I have been misinterpreted in so much as I am not defending him as a whole and just because he is a proven, inexcusable liar on occasion should not mean he is a evil in everything he does. It’s the melodrama of some that get to me *cough Eugene *cough ’He’s a liar, ergo everything he does deserves blindly damning. Bugger, I said I wouldn’t do that!

I was (naively) asking for balance. #fail

Isn’t that a bit like saying in hindsight ’Hitler was a good leader because Stalin was worse’?

I never found much else in his stewardship which merited complement and now even that single praiseworthy action seems old hat. Given that MoyesÂ’s successor could have been appointed only on his ability to out think Davey on the way to an FA Cup trophy, BK can now add lack of due diligence to his many shortcomings.

But heÂ’s Â’Our BillÂ’ and heÂ’s an Evertonian. Urhh !

And how much do you think our Chairman was able to raise on his mortgage for his house? If you think it raised the ~6,5m for his share purchase in 2000 then more fool you.

Link

How can a club expect to prosper when a man had to remortgage his house to buy them? Might be alright in The Vauxhall Conference, but we are talking about the richest league, the world has ever seen.

Kenwright never takes a penny out of Everton, not even the money to pay the re-mortgage! This is the man who gets off the train at Lime St, and drives past Walton Hall Park to get to Goodison Park.

Borrowing against one’s property is not unique and many of us have ’released equity’ as house values have risen. I don’t remember getting many plaudits when I’ve done so as it was strictly a private decision to take maximum benefit of the market. It was like getting my hands on free money. Then again, I didn’t invest in Everton shares which will soon be worth a great deal more than Bill paid for them.

Always provided we don’t get relegated !!!

Good post you made though. There - IÂ’ve said it. Now IÂ’m off to Confession.......

Interestingly, they don’t (yet) own their stadium. They also have a supporters trust holding 21% of their shares, and they will not dilute this when the Americans come in with their 30% stake.

All this Boys Pen, teary-eyed, true-blue bullshit is just a smokescreen for this charlatan to continue on his jolly. While heÂ’s in charge, we will never progress as a club.

I understand that BK is the majority shareholder at the present time with over 9,000 shares but he must have had some of his own when he purchased PJ’s shares to give him his majority.

On another article a shareholder explained that shares are sold between owners of shares at an agreed price between them selves, as there is no fixed price. At that time,he stated he had bought a couple of shares from a fellow shareholder and the price of the shares was over ٠,000.

So I ask – How much did it cost BK to take control from PJ? It could not have been for just the price of gaining his shares unless PJ asked for 㿞,000 a share.

At least, that’s what True Blues Holdings (aka Bill and his mates) finally paid to Peter Johnson, buying up each of his 24,986 Everton Shares to gain control of Everton Football Club. This was after months of rumoured deals, in which the price of the deal kept dropping and dropping... from 𧵄M (or was it 𧶀M?) down to a rather paltry 㿀M.

Yes, that’s how much it cost Bill and Co to wrest control of EFC from the evil red clutches of Peter "Hamper" Johnson. (Snippets of the story can be found here: Everton Shares.)

Take away Man City and Chelsea and there has not been another club that has benefitted from new owners. Unless a new owner is willing to waste hundreds of millions in bankrolling our club with a new ground and players of the calibre that Man City and Chelsea have, they are wasting there time and money. Unless they want to treat our club as a play thing and we are left with the likes of an Abramovich who changes managers on a whim, there would be no returns on their investment. I just cannot see that happening Alan (50) for the above reason.

Investment in the playing squad to make us consistent genuine challengers for a top 4 place would cost a fortune; then the small matter of having the funds for a ground move. LetÂ’s start at 𧶀 million. With a fan base of roughly 40,000 in a socially deprived area, close to Liverpool, Man City and Man Utd. Where are the returns?

Gareth, I donÂ’t want to sound dismissive but you sound like a few Evertonians I know who think we just arenÂ’t good enough to invest in. The Arabs took a punt on a smallish club in Manchester of all places and itÂ’s working out quite well for them.

I donÂ’t believe there arenÂ’t investors out there who wouldnÂ’t be interested in us but when you have a megalomaniac in charge, who probably is demanding an exorbitant fee, then it doesnÂ’t get any easier does it?

If someone wants to treat us as a plaything and throw silly money at us, then by all means, but I would wonder why. If we were regularly chasing trophies, what sort if capacity could we be looking at? 45 to 50,000?

I understand that BK doe’s not have the financial wealth that other chairmen of Premier League clubs have, but he has on the board two people whose combined wealth exceeds 𧺬 mill so, in reality, we are far from being the poorest in the league.

The question is: "Am I missing something?" as BK doe’s not appear to have actually put a lot of money into the club "Why is it so difficult to sell the club?" The only thing that I can think of is that, for personal gain, he is putting too high an inflated price for it...

I recall a Talksport Special about three years ago in which Stan Collymore suggested 𧴵M would buy the lion’s share of Everton although money for a new ground would have to be added.

I guess since then, the Sky booty has added a hefty premium and the debt book has all but disappeared.

𧶲M anyone?

I wouldn’t put too much faith in the "remortgaged" tale... Theatrical embellishment at best. But as I recall, it was made in the context of buying into his portion of TBH, which eventually gave him 9,000+ EFC shares. But the cost was apparently much greater than the value of his house. Who knows, perhaps he was a million or two short?

Much as BK boasts that no-one on the Board takes a salary, what he fails to mention is that (AFAWK) no-one on the Board puts any money into the club either. Now some say that they should indeed all be using their wealth to advance their mutual asset. After all, if it would boost the club’s value.... But as investors, they would need to be sure such additional outlay would see as good a return.

I can understand fans’ frustrations when they see the massive amounts being spent by other clubs, essentially to buy trophies, and the assumption has to be, if we can’t do it, then it’s because our Directors won’t pony up. But should they be expected/required to? I’m not convinced.

If the venture is so precarious, despite (or because of) the massive TV payouts that are now dominating clubs’ income streams, what is the rationale for putting more and more of one’s own money in? Especially if there is no clear path to seeing a hefty return?

That brings us neatly to the question of selling. That has to be the way for these investors to make their money ultimately. So why not sell now, if they can? Perhaps because they feel they must balance that current gain against the prospect of an even bigger return down the road...

Obviously the Premier League is an incredible cash-cow everyone would want to get sucking on... yet how many actually make a profit? Any analysis of even the top clubs seems to show that, while the turnover is crazy-big, the profits seem to be rather small, while the debts are astronomical.

Something doesn’t make sense. What is really going on? It’s almost too easy to convince yourself that these club owners are siphoning off a nice tidy portion of the vast monies coursing through their books... While they wallow in the reflected glory of their involvement in the biggest stage on earth. If that’s the case, then why indeed would they make it stop? (By selling.)

I’ve watched this crazy thing for 20 years now and it seems to defy rational analysis. I still can’t work it out.

Kenwright needs to go. This is well tread territory. I can’t see it happening unless we win something. Haven’t Villa been for sale for a while and they’re a second city club with a ground that doesn’t need redeveloping.

While I’m naturally biased and think we’re a bigger club than them in terms of history. It’s a concern that nobody seems to want to buy them for a fee that I’m guessing will be less than Bill and his friends are asking.

I guess if BK ever decided to do a play of his time as chairman of Everton FC, the title would be: "My Life Of Smoke and Mirrors" .... Or an alternative: "Never Let The Right Hand Know What The Left Is Doing."

And Phil, your answer is 㿠½ million, as there are 35,000 shares outstanding.

If the club is really valued at 𧶀M, would I be invited to cash in at ~٣,700 for my paltry slice of the cake?

My bet is that the couple of hundred grand he raised was used to pay interest up front on the loan he got to get his shares.

It will most probably come from an investment fund that in someway they would get a tax refund plus interest.

The millions went to Peter Johnson, to Paul Gregg... to whoever else sold the shares. Only back in the distant past did the club see the paltry ٟ per share that is their nominal value. Since then, itÂ’s been a high-class version of Pass the Parcel.

Bill (#94), I believe thatÂ’s basically what Sir John Moores did when we were the Mersey Millionaires. I donÂ’t know if thatÂ’s whatÂ’s happening at other clubs these days... but it sure as hell ainÂ’t happening any where near the EFC Boardroom!

Thank you but that was explained to me by Michael (#87).

Not sure what the current price is but would not be surprised if it's gone up due to the new TV deal.

Share Ownership in Everton Football Club Co Ltd is a sentimental (not financial) investment. (Unless your name is Sir Philip Green!!)

Is it right to assume that any person or consortium only has to become majority shareholder/s to take control of the club and then resume the running of the club with its debts and running costs and incomes?

We are all made to believe that a new stadium is factored into the cost of a takeover but, with modern methods and engineering, a new owner may be able to revamp Goodison Park a lot less than a new stadium. This raises the question again of why there have been no potential buyers for the club over the last 4-5 years? Is it because BK and his backers are asking for a huge profit on their original investment? Or is there really no-one who is interested in buying into Everton FC?

People may wonder why I persist on comments on BK and his inept Board; well it is because, since BK took over, one of his comments was that he wanted to put Everton FC in its rightful place in the Premier League...
Well, I believe that Everton's rightful place is at the top – not occasional good cup runs and top 5-7th finishes. Going on previous failures, BK and his Board are the last ones I would trust with the new Premier League monies coming in.

I have been an Everton Supporter since 1952 and under this regime it has been 2 steps forward and 3 steps back; I do not not see any change in the future while BK is in charge. But, hey, I have seen stranger things happen in my lifetime.

I'm not getting further into it because I've had years of trying to point the obvious out to the most myopic people I've ever met. I don't wish any of them any ills, I've just gained a lethargy to ignore them as white noise unless they are preaching the lies they have been drip fed as a single version of the truth.

Blankstone Sington – great name for a firm!!

But tell me how easy/difficult would it be for a simpleton like myself to acquire a couple of shares in this bonanza we call Everton – always fancied myself as a shareholder – wasn't that one of the Thatcher legacies?

Of course the other big difference is that an Everton share generates no income for its holder, as no dividends are paid. There are some minor perks associated with being a shareholder, but basically we are mini-Bills. I bought a share after Johnson’s rights issue back in the day, because I had a friend whose family had five shares passed down the generations since 1892. It’s all about sentiment for the small shareholder!

In other words are we talking in terms of years, decades, pure luck or forget it, it'll never happen?

http://www.blankstonesington.co.uk/our-services/additional-services/football-club-shares/

Whether they keep a waiting list or similar I don’t know.

Link

It's amazing what you can find on the internet.

Good to see you back and in form – remind me never to cross swords with you.