Everton finish 8th in the money league

Seriously though, if we still claim that we donÂ’t have a pot to piss in after seeing those figures, then we are being lied to. Again.

To build a new stadium without harming current club finances, there has to be an extra injection of money.

The first instalment last summer for Lukaku was £9M and think Besic was £4M. Most transfer fees nowadays are staggered over the length of the player's contract.

Though the £80M figure looks mind-blowing, it isn’t really in the modern game, not when figures of £80M to £100M are being touted about for the star players. I suppose in that context the £28M we paid for Lukaku is not much different to buying Duncan Ferguson for £4M when he came from Rangers. Now if we could only find a way of earning £800M then we might be able to make a dent in that top four.

The problem for us is that other clubs leave us in their wake with commercial revenues.

But I have never seen and evidence of Bill K robbing the club as is so often hinted at in many emails.

Definition of ring-fence:

In financial terms to ring-fence is to remove a set of assets from a set of accounts and consider it separately. This could be done for a company or for an individual. Certain assets could perhaps be moved offshore which would lower that companyÂ’s or personÂ’s tax liability. Ring-fenced assets in some jurisdictions could also be subject to higher taxation, but the financial arrangement is made to protect the remainder of the business from the higher tax rate. The term is also used in a regulatory sense to describe a way of managing a corporation where certain parts of the business could be ring-fenced to ensure that losses in one part did not affect another.

The Â’onlyÂ’ real investors in our club are the fans who buy the merchandise (when they can find it) and pay to watch. The board do neither!!

Managers are hired to front the board and toe the line. They are there to act as Â’punch bagsÂ’ when things are going wrong and provide a barrier which the board can hide behind.

I am quickly becoming disillusioned as a fan and am not excited at the prospect of us signing any players we are being linked with.

If we do not bring in one or two players who will genuinely improve the squad and lift the fans, then I will stop watching them live.

Our chairman once stated that the money for us to move into a state-of-the-art stadium in the city centre was ring-fenced i.e. guaranteed, put to one side. A few months later, the whole deal collapsed, because we couldnÂ’t provide our share of the funding.

If you have a look at the Liverpool Echo Arena, that’s what could have been if we had been able to provide the £30 million that was ’ring-fenced!’

Does Europa affect this much? ie weÂ’re playing Sundays anyway so the TV companies pick up the game?