Report: Kenyon-led consortium will commit to stadium build

I don't think we would be able to, would we?

The record they have with human rights would put me right off.

Plus red is a lucky colour in China.

The primary money man in the group, John Thornton, lives part-time in China and is involved in US/China investment funds, and he is longtime friends with Chairman Xi and other top Party officials.

Checkout Thornton and Kaminski's links to human rights issues in Tanzania.

I agree it is difficult to see how, at least in the short term, we can spend significantly on transfers given our position re FFP. Indeed, I seem to recall that was one of the points made about Newcastle and their takeover that they would still have to meet FFP regulations – although, given their financial performance over previous years, they have a lot more scope than us!

I believe all we can expect of any new owners is the commitment to develop the club infrastructure (ie, the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock), expand our income sources (eg, Anfield has just hosted Rolling Stones, Elton John and Eagles concerts), and generally run the club in a much more business-like manner that will, over time, significantly improve our finances and allow us to compete at the top again.

In my view, this has to be the approach we look for as increasing the club's financial capability is required both under the current Premier League regulations and potential new UEFA regulations where player wages and the amortisation of transfer fees can only be up to 70% of revenue.

They are used for a number of purposes:

As written confirmation of the main terms agreed in principle.

To outline the timetable and obligations of the parties during the negotiations.

As a framework for certain preliminary legally binding clauses such as an exclusivity agreement, where such an agreement is permitted.

Heads of terms are commonly entered into at the beginning of a transaction, once preliminary terms have been agreed and before commencement of detailed due diligence and the drafting of definitive agreements (which is where the parties will begin to incur significant costs). The parties may enter into a series of heads of terms throughout the negotiations, particularly when negotiations are prolonged.

Their business dealings are, to say the least, questionable. I don't believe their ownership of Everton would be in the best interests of the club in the long run.

Just what does “due diligence” mean if it doesn't look at and judge the past business dealings of prospective buyers?

Being a mere nurse, I have no idea about consortiums, leveraged buyouts, and overseas dodgy chancers.

My spider sense is tingling already with regards to this ending up as another shit show.

It needs to be communicated to Moshiri that the club is best served by not necessarily taking the best offer from the worst crowd.

I've just seen a bit of light of a new beginning and you just reminded us he won't walk away easily. In fact, he will fight tooth and nail to cling on to HMS Good Times.

Like you, I assume FFP would constrain us regardless of owners. But I keep reading articles indicating that somehow or other a takeover would remove the spending constraints. Is there a definitive source on this matter?

Oh yes, I forgot, he's got his mate to advise him. But hopefully now Farhad has stopped being the man who just kept giving, although something doesn't feel right about this just now.

Maybe I'm being a bit naïve thinking any consortium with enough money to buy a football club will have an unblemished business background but I have to live in hope, or try to remember where I put that bottle of Mount Gay XO!

We shall see on that one. I'd like to hear The Esk's view on that.

We need to know where the money is coming from.

Is the new stadium to be mortgaged for 50 years so we can service the debt that this consortium is taking on?

How will that affect the club long-term?

How much of their own wealth are these people investing?

I am hoping Paul can shed some light on the risks and benefits involved with this particular group.

Mike, the Chinese connection is intriguing and how that could develop.

The CEO and co-founder of the company, Mike France, is a big Blue. I went to the match at White Hart Lane with him (safe-standing, not prawn sandwich); he stuck the game out with me. He was very complimentary about the Everton commercial team he dealt with, describing them as extremely professional, and he is also genuinely interested in the work of EitC.

But then it depends where that money comes from. Say perhaps from sponsorship.

Didn't Man City do something like that?

I don't confess to be an expert on these matters but I seem to remember them securing a particularly eyebrow-raising and dodgy sponsorship dealing that must have been bordering on breaking the rules?

I might be wrong and it could be both – but I do believe there is a distinction between the two and our biggest problem in the transfer market is with the Premier League version.

What Man City did was "land" a bumper sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways – which happened to be owned by Sheikh Mansour – just as Man City was. In other words, one of his companies was sponsoring another of his companies and, of course, its value was way above what might have been reasonably expected in an "arms-length" sponsorship deal. However, their lawyers defended it – and won.

I believe that it is impossible to amass a fortune, in any walk of life, and do so without exploiting your fellow man in some way, shape or form. Consequently, anyone rich enough to be sitting at the table in a consortium of this nature, is never going to be "whiter than white" nor "holier than thou". Sadly, it is the way of the world.

Sacrificing our moral indignation is the price, we, as supporters, must pay, in order to attract the level of investment and success at EFC that we want to see.

The alternative, in the modern day, is to return to supporting true grassroots football, where the players love to play and so much so that they pay a fee to hire the training ground twice a week and also chip in to get the kit washed.

Because one minute you're screaming he's clueless and should sell up, and now you're moaning about him being bought out.

Perhaps in past times, a more favourable cast might have been, a tilted symbiosis. A "Deal" of sorts. It's all a matter of extent. Now, power just squeezes the absolute pips out as standard practice.

Anyone wanting to really express morality to the full would have an almost empty wardrobe and no electrical goods or tech at least (I don't claim to be that person, by the way).

Do we know what we are getting? Are they in it for the love of the club? Are they hard nosed business people in it to make a fast buck?

If the consortium are serious and want to invest in the club, the fanbase, and a new stadium, then we will only find out if the takeover goes ahead. Let's hope due diligence serves its true purpose and we have the right owners in place, who care about the club and take us to the next level.

Everything behind that – there'll be no comfort and warmth from there. Love of the club, highly unlikely to figure; bygone times.

As I alluded to on another thread, what we do to help reform the club could also take it into a bad place reputation-wise. I'm not sure this is where the locals who live Everton the most would want it to go at this point, so my talk is somewhat cheap.

On the other hand, I believe we can credibly infer that the Dyspeptic Duo do not like bad press and cannot stomach it for long. Should there be another taking of the pitch against the FA's ivory tower wishes to get a good black eye on those two for again joining forces and bank accounts with shitty people looking for an easy mark and payday, it should be a dandy media event.

Whether it would ultimately affect their choice is an open question but tactics like that would bring down the cushiness of the payoff.

I know things can be worse but to see the back of these two divs, in my view, will be well worth it.

The club needs good leadership and an owner who doesn't buy big-name players who don't fit in on huge wages. Everton have this one last opportunity to sort themselves out – poor decisions now won't just cost us derby losses, they will cost us Premier League status, and with it, many many years of heartache.

'The Premier League, Football League and UEFA each has its own regulations governing club finances. The most widely known FFP policies are probably UEFA's. These pertain to the licensing system for teams who wish to take part in European club competitions. '

So it is the Premier League Profit and Sustainability rules that Everton is dealing with, as you state.

One wonders if Ancelotti had have got Everton a European place, what would have materialised???

"Remember when we used to say, the day we get a rich owner, we will probably be hit by an asteroid"?

Was that a typo ?

We got hit with a haemorrhoid, a 30-year one !

Forgot to mention that the Astronomical Society even named the haemorrhoid, Kenwright Narcissist!

I think that in the past, people have come to our club, and once associated with it, they learn to love the club.

If the consortium feel the passion of the fans, it could be a good fit.

One thing is for sure, time is running out for some of our fans seeing the return of our glory days. Let's hope that at last we can bring them back, sooner rather than later.

Why are we going on about the negatives with this takeover, are there no positives. As he says, there are no such thing as Lilly white billionaires. I think that we all may have done something in our past that others may have found to be disrespectful or worse.

What we should be looking at is: Is this beneficial to the Club and most of all the supporters? Will we be able to bring in a better standard of player? Is the future of our showpiece new ground financially secure? And will this, or any other consortium, ensure that the club will be professionally run as a football club.

Obviously there is no guarantee – no matter who takes over – that they will tick all the boxes, but it should not be too difficult to improve on what we have.

There are some regimes that should be avoided but I think they have already been accepted by the FA.

As you allude, our hopes are for success on the pitch.

But... I would feel so much more comfortable with any deal if the stadium was already built and was Everton's.

The fact that so little is known and yet so much concern and negativity surrounds this group is a worry. I agree with an earlier post, always trust your spider senses.

I think we all agree football has changed and not all for the better.

I sense the Russian invasion will be used to excuse any over spend from last season. I wonder what world event may happen next and how many more excuses Moshiri and Co can come up with. Apologies are of little comfort to me.

We've already come out the shit smelling of roses. Let's hope the luck has turned.

This is underlined by today's headline where the Man Utd fans are up in arms because the Glazer family have taken an £11 million "dividend" out of the club, this year, having saddled the cub with massive debt by using a leveraged buyout when they originally bought the club.

Yes. Do we sell our soul to the devil? I'll likely be savaged by some of the US-based guys but I've never known a US company with a heart and I've been dealing with many of them in my 54 years of business.

Difficult decision, this one. IMO, if it's just about money, £1 billion is not enough – that figure is "just about the money" no goodwill.

We are approaching 30 years without silverware and in that time the gap between us and those we used to measure up against has widened massively. The sooner the better.

1) Name him honorary Supreme Commander for all eternity
2) Let him keep his club tie and Dave Hickson memorabilia
3) Give him a 60% discount on his season tickets
4) Name him our roving international ambassador to increase our international profile. May I suggest he visits Afghanistan, the Donbas, Yemen and eastern Syria for starters?
5) Feed Bill's ego. It's the only way we will ever get rid of him.

We're 9th in the "league table" of time passed since winning a trophy. I wonder where we can realistically hope to be in that?

I'm cynical in my viewpoint and often think "Just because we were successful in the mid-'80s doesn't mean we'll be successful again any time soon" – as much as I want and dream that it will happen.

It's like the financial warning usually used for shares or investments "past performance does not guarantee future results".

Moshiri barely got a murmur out of it.

We're more comatose than sleeping with a Kenwright nightmare on repeat.

How the child pauper who had holes in his shoes came to the resurrection of those fallen giants, Everton, out of nothing but love. How he begged, stole and borrowed, whilst never taking a penny for himself.

A remarkable achievement, which has taken him to the same revered heights as Dixie Dean and the Holy Trinity in the eyes of those fanatical Evertonians who continue to sing the Spirit of the Blues, because under the guidance of Bill Kenwright, Everton have never shone so brightly.

Americans are pretty shrewd and as someone else posted you don't amass millions or billions without ruffling a few feathers and having a ruthless streak.

A wind of change throughout the club will hopefully be just what is needed.

Has he kept up to date with the changing face of football, analytics, incremental gains, agents and media, since he was at the top of his game in the late 1990s and early 2000s? Who knows... But we need someone who can run a modern business and understands football at the same time.

The next few years will be tough with no funds and loan deals, unless our best assets are sold and replaced – unlikely. Moshiri will likely make a loss if he sold now but, if he waits, it could get worse before it gets better.

He can also freely walk up and down Goodison Road every day with a placard reading “We've Had Some Good Times”.

They will face the same problems that Moshiri has faced, ie having to trust hired 'experts' to perform their tasks well.
Thats what has brought us to this, experts throwing Moshiri's money around on players that have proved not good enough.

Firstly, someone takes us over quickly and that secondly, Kenwright is put through the stage trap door and disappears from the club. Poisonous, greedy, selfish, idiot and they're his good points. I don't care who takes us over, it could be the owner of Johnny-Bag Condoms for all I care, so long as the crying clown gets his marching order and fucks off.

That made me laugh out loud... superb.

Good point as well as being funny.

Whoever finished up as owners should on the first hour of the first day bin every half-wit on the Board, which is everyone there.

A total clear out and professional experienced people brought in to run the club.

It occurs to me that Bill may be the longest-serving board member in the history of the club. I don't know enough about the very early days to answer that, but certainly in more modern times.

He might actually get some sort of monumental acknowledgement at the new stadium... imagine that - Oo-er.

Either that or the guy who spouts shite, then clicks his finger and thumb and says back in the room.

He has even done it to me, every man and his dog knows my feelings on the guy, yet I'm transfixed thinking season ticket holders have had affordable tickets and tickets priced to accommodate the younger fans, will these be priced out for any future owners, raising ticket prices.

Even now his dark forces are out, to get inside my head, sod it still want him gone.

"The Peter Kenyon-led group are now in advanced talks to buy Everton, Football Insider has learned.

"The former Manchester United and Chelsea chief executive is fronting a group backed by American businessmen John Thornton and Maciek Kaminski, who is the chief executive of a real estate company.

"An Everton source has told Football Insider that discussions have moved on in recent days and have now reached an “advanced” stage."

Brian, we all know it - there's a high chance that he will feature in some way...

Well, there we are. You can just write what's going to happen from here. Moshiri will do a Rumpelstiltskin and never be heard from again. Our investors will in a few weeks leak that there are 'real concerns' with the state of Everton, and that a lot of the problems have only now come to light. The ground move will be put 'on hold' pending a review of viability.

It's clear now that the reason Farhad has been dragging his heels and didn't take the council up on the rock bottom loan was that he knew the figures didn't stack up, and he didn't want to be the one to tell the fanbase that it won't work.

Better to sell, and let the new guys downscale everything. Meanwhile, down on the Docks, Peel and all the other 'investors' are toasting the fact the Council got rid of the Unesco limitations, so everyone is free to build a load of shite along the riverside.

If these Yanks say "We have our own people," that's music to my ears. If it all goes Pete Tong, at least there will be only people the opening of the new stadium who deserve to be. You know the rest. That will do for me.

All-in-all, it doesn't sound like a dream come true!

But then the current lord hasn't exactly been a fairytale either! As Kevin above says, I think there is a general exhaustion within the fans and a certain unsurety at how these things will work out.

Moshiri's arrival was greeted with much fanfare only for us to spend a fortune going embarrassingly backwards. Hard to imagine this new lot could do a considerably worse job but never say never. Strange times.

Until Kenwright goes, we are going nowhere.

He's the evil fly in the ointment, and can't wait for his next payoff, at our expense again!!!