Moshiri could sell up without other investors

I believe it's the most likely scenario to happen over the coming months. It's for the best this happens soon before Moshiri inflicts more long-lasting damage on the club with his incompetence.

John (#1);

Who knows if there is any truth in this but it might be that he is less worried about any incompetence but more so about the possibility that the Government's next target might be friends of friends and in the opportunity in the rumour that more Saudis are reported as looking into buying Chelsea or perhaps another Premier League club.

Anyone know how committed the changes are and development opportunities on Goodison's site is?

The stadium on its on, with the increased revenue from ticket sales, would never justify or recover the £500M+ spent in a reasonable period. It's clear that the naming rights for the stadium was the only way to make it remotely feasible; even that was clutching at straws.

With that source of funding now sealed, and Moshiri unable to raise the required funds himself, the only options are either to abandon the project and lose many millions or sell the club now and still lose many millions.

Whatever happens, this doesn't end well for Moshiri (and partners) and will not end well for the club if it drags on.

There's a TV programme called the Curse of Oak Island. A great treasure is supposedly buried there in what is called the money pit. Apparently, no-one knows who was responsible for the treasure.

Might I suggest that the real money pit is located at Goodison Park and that Moshiri placed the treasure amounting to £685M on the pitch. A fool and his money are soon parted!!

Well EFC will at least be in the Guinness Book of Records for owning the biggest Sand Pit in the World. Maybe we should start a Beach Volleyball team – we might win something!!

All this is so bloody Everton!!

I think Usmanov never reared his head for a major reason, and Kenwright has possibly been the biggest beneficiary of this?

The irony is we don't lack ruthless professionalism (ha-ha-fucken-ha). Mr Kenwright has told us that many clubs often ring him to ask for advice because of how well Everton Football Club are run. If Moshiri did sell, this might be a worry moving forward; I just hope he sells us to the right people!

Maybe I'm wrong but sometimes I think we underestimate the value of our football club, especially once it's got a stadium on the very iconic River Mersey. But maybe I'm the one who's wrong, maybe I need to take my Royal Blue-tinted spectacles off.

I’d read in the Daily Star that Moshiri is thinking of setting up a new football club on the Moon, with Elvis as manager.

Stan, I'd say there's more chance of that happening than us winning the Premier League under him.

"Alisher Usmanov made an attempt to become more closely involved with Everton last year but ran up against problems in having his proposed funding structure approved, sources have told this column.

The oligarch, whose company sponsored Everton until he was sanctioned by the British government, looked at the possibility of loaning Everton a large sum which would then have been turned into equity, according to those with knowledge of the events.

The Premier League, however, is understood to have indicated that the proposed funding structure would not be approved — so Everton may have had a lucky escape given subsequent events and what has happened with fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich at Chelsea."

From an article in The Times 2 days ago, some of which I've posted above.

Hopefully the stadium gets completed and we're still a Premier League team.

Then, Moshiri sells up to someone with an iota of football and business sense.

If Moshiri is so intrinsically linked to Usmanov with all their various businesses and Usmanov is so close to Putin, then it doesn't take a genius to see that our owner probably has links to this odious regime.

It is long-term investment in Everton FC that has been shown again and again to really pay off (Earl, Grantchester... Kenwright!!). On that model, Moshiri is in it for the long haul and I'm not convinced he would want to sell any time soon, ideally not for a number of years after the stadium is built and he can maximise his return on investment.

But I guess circumstances could change and he could be forced into selling? Have they changed already with the massive uncertainty created by this mad war? In our parlous current state, it's all too easy to come up with Doomsday scenarios that include the massive financial impact of relegation.

I wonder if Everton telling the Liverpool City Regional Authority back in January they don't need the £30M loan is linked to that element of the Usmanov story above, with his investment being much more than just the naming rights? If so, that would all now lie in tatters on the boardroom floor.

If Moshiri is now forced to put the stadium on hold through lack of funding, or worse, abandon it altogether... well that seems to be the biggest immenint danger. But Moshiri presumably still has substantial assets he could liquidate (although at risk of selling in a falling market) to continue to fund construction.

John, #3, I’m not sure why you say the naming rights are sealed off. Presumably the contract with Usmanov is now null and void so we could presumably replace it? I accept the terms were “generous” but there should still be options.
Also I am beginning to wonder about the closer relationship Tim Cahill now has with the club. Could this be to introduce some Qatari investment (I know that would not sit comfortably with everyone)

Have we “suspended” our ties with USM or have we “cancelled” them?

In terms of the naming rights, if it is the former and the Ukraine war has been over for a while once the stadium is built, would we simply carry on the contract?

It is reasonable to assume all previous assumptions about the funding of the new stadium have been rendered unstable by the war in Ukraine. Moreover the loss of sponsorship income covering day to day running costs further jeopardises the club’s ongoing financial position and ultimately Premier League status.

How will Moshiri and Usmanov respond? In the short term they may decide the only viable option is to do and say nothing. The war, in some shape or form, seems likely to carry on for weeks, months, perhaps years. I suspect that beyond waiting to see how events unfold, the future of the assets belonging to Putin connected Oligarchs will end up in the courts. The outcome of their appeals may well go a long way to determining the future of Everton Football Club as well as the stadium.

We would not be the first club to stop the building of a new stadium owing to financial issues. Valencia are planning to restart their new stadium project which was halted halfway though construction over a decade ago.

It is total hypocrisy to me!

All these Russian oligarchs are allowed to buy whatever the fuck they wanted, especially in England, and now, because of a war, they decide to sanction them - should never been allowed in the first place, right?

Like governments everywhere never knew all this oligarch cash was fairly dodgy, are they serious? Not many give a fuck when there are huge wodges of cash and backhanders going on left, right and centre, how many have gotten seriously wealthy from it?

It is the same old story in life, it always takes grief and tragedy before anything is done.

No Oliver, not right.

The war triggers the sanctions. No war, no sanctions.

Before the war, did you perhaps write to your MP about the Russian oligarchs and their dodgy money? Just curious...

The future of Everton FC is in the hands of the players and manager. The Premier League is a cash cow – if not, why are so many billionaires wanting to buy Chelsea?

Moshiri is a billionaire and I doubt very much that he increased his holdings to 95 % to lose money.

What is sponsoring? A sponsor does not buy shares in the club – he provides money to advertise the products his companies produce.

And look at the heading of this article it says "Rumours" – usually written by someone who is speculating without actual facts. Someone else who likes to kick Everton when they are struggling.

The reports indicate that the club has not signed a contract with the contractor for the entire stadium project, just a part of it.

When you factor the lack of clarity on financing, the loss of sponsorship, it's clear that Moshiri is running out of road to run on. He will need to sell the club; hopefully he doesn't take as long as the last guy did to sell the club.

John #11, There is no way the club can replace the naming rights deal that Usmanov was going to provide with anything close by. It was well above market rate.

Michael,
What am I not right about ?
Of course I didn't write to anyone about Russian oligarchs..
You are correct, if not for this war there would be no sanctions EVEN though the cash was always dodgy don't you think ?

Oliver, you said @14:

"All these Russian oligarchs are allowed to buy whatever the fuck they wanted, especially in England, and now, because of a war, they decide to sanction them - should never been allowed in the first place, right?"

I don't think you are right to say it "should never been allowed in the first place". You wanted a free Western democracy to have told certain travellers that they can't use their money to buy expensive stuff, nice gaffs, football clubs, send their kids to fancy private schools... etc ?

Sorry but that is totally a non-starter. Yes, if you buy a house, they do ask you from whence the money came. They don't let you put down more than £2,000 in cash for a car purchase, and they want to know where it's coming from. But you probably don't need a very smart lawyer to come up with a pretty good line and some suitable documents.

If you are going to get all moralistic about where people got their money from and make your own judgements about good or bad, why stop at Russian oligarchs? Oh, and I think you are going to be extremely busy trying prove stuff that is well hidden in a flurry of obfuscating electronic paper trails.

I disagree, Michael. If these guys are dodgy now, they were dodgy then.

Michael (#19);

Even free Western democracies have immigration laws which includes people of doubtful character and, alas, probably business people with a certain wealth, however attained, used to be Arabs with petro-dollars. He who pays the piper?

I doubt whether Moshiri still has the means to continue with the ground move, especially if we go down. He seemed to have a steady stream of cash from USM, but that has dried up completely. The best thing would probably be for him to sell if he can find a buyer which is doubtful in our current position.

I just don't understand this disconnected retrospective stuff.

But this is after all the country that was wound up to apoplectic by the media when they found out the governing elite, working together through the Covid crisis, somehow 'disrespected' the dead, dying and grieving (who know nothing of it at the time and were totally unimpacted by it) because they would dare to pause now and again to have a few drinks and a piece of cheese.

So yea, sure. Bleat all you want with this "what about their dodgy money" nonsense. But that's not why they are being sanctioned.

Putin went to war. That is why they are being sanctioned. When they came to this country with their money, dodgy or not, Putin had not invaded Ukraine, and their money was as welcome as anyone's.

You can't turn the clock back and re-run stuff. It doesn't work like that. Although, if they need to intensify the sanctions further as the war drags on, who knows what retrospective shit they may come up with? I hear internment camps worked pretty well last time...

These guys were and are close associates of Putin before the war, Michael, although reports are now saying cracks are beginning to appear. Why did it take the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, a war for the clampdown and sanctions? – greed?

The UK Prime Minister said very recently, and I quote, "Russian oligarchs will no longer have a hiding place for their “ill-gotten gains” in the UK under legislation being introduced in parliament this week".

Key words here are "no longer", so I would suggest it was quite obvious that several blind eyes were being turned to these guys.

I think the Unexplained Wealth Order legislation has been in place but it hasn't been very effective. As Boris said, it would be fast-tracked after the invasion of Ukraine. It was only introduced in Parliament last week; let's see how long it takes to become law.

I see it does contain retrospective actions, so perhaps I'm wrong – the clock can be turned back to satisfy folks like you, Oliver. "Under the new legislation, a register of overseas entities will be set up, applying retrospectively to property bought up to 20 years ago in England and Wales."

If Moshiri can lawfully hang onto his massive investment he will.

So what happens now after today's surrender. Who knows if it will be a bullet in the shoulder or it will be bad and terminal. Lap of the Goodison Gods.

It's survival I think, just, and more roller coaster rides to get to where the club need to be. Looking forward to a promise of glory somewhere way down the line. It's shite, isn't it?

"Unexplained Wealth Order legislation."

More likely to be turned on the little man doing £100 cash foreign exchange, down the line.

Funny how much government "Action" only comes into place after things have been allowed to progress unfettered for 20 or more years.

I discovered quite recently, a house I lived in for a time as a child is now a rental property (to a corporate client), and Chinese owned – along with two others on the road.

Not to single out Chinese as the villains because property and assets of all kinds and sizes are owned all over the country by multiple interests of multiple nationalities. It's part of the globalist soup.

I doubt the worst of corrupt activity would make much of a dent in the scope of the legitimately held assets.

I don't think it's tabloid nonsense but a rather sensible cutting of losses from a calamitous investment.

With relegation almost nailed on and the financial albatross of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock hanging around his neck, the loss of Usmanov has transformed this ludicrous shambles into a perfect storm to suck dry his bank account in a year or two.

If I was him, I'd be packing my bags right now with the words "Never mention Everton FC in my presence again".

Michael #25

Talking to my accountant this week. He tells me that "Unexplained Wealth Order" is now being implemented. It gives parties 30 days to respond to an order after it is served. If not responded to, property can be seized.

There was a problem in identifying owners due to offshore anonymity up to last September, but the Inland Renvenue are now prepared to serve the order and seize on no response, leaving to the owners to prove otherwise.

His response to my suggestion of an offshore Britain tax haven was "no such animal".

There are only 4 certainties, deaths, taxes, cockroaches surviving a nuclear blast, and Bill remaining as Chairman.

Moshiri was like a kid in a sweet shop, all that money to spend, and Bill rubbing his hands like Arkwright the shop keeper, advising him on weekly inspirational toilet roll offers. Bill with Moshiri's money made Viv Nicholson look like a fair-minded spender.

Moshiri has only himself to blame, for letting the Chairman stay on and spend the owners money.

Nothing will change, while we have him onboard, the stench of the 20-odd years of him in at the club is getting stronger by the day.

If Moshiri sells up, I just hope to god, Kenwright is finally removed from our club.

The Moshiri - Kenwright axis of evil have destroyed Everton. I hope both of them have their assets seized and are declared football outlaws.

Five years it's taken them to destroy 150 years of history.

Start with the politicians, Boris. Let all your mates then explain everything they can tell us about all their unexplained wealth.

Colin #31,

100% Correct.

The charlatan who would only bring in someone on the "don't forget it's mine, I am only letting you have a go" terms is the reason this club is on the brink.

If only his bloody Uncle had been a red-neck... I despise Kenwright with a passion – The Greatest Evertonian ?? has destroyed the club aided and abetted by the most naive accountant in the history of financial prudence.

How can so many managers have failed miserably? In my eyes, it is interference from above; so many nepotistic appointments. Take Ferguson, Unsworth, Baines, Sharp plus all the other coaches of failure – they must have had some input into the failure of managers.

Look at Silva, he started off decent, then was dragged down to the normal level. I think, as Fulham come up and perhaps Everton go down, he will be sticking two fingers up on both hands as they pass for the way he was destroyed by the Blue rot which engulfs everything that is going to rock Kenwright's little boat.

We are looking at the end of Everton Football Club as a big player in our lifetimes.

Michael(#23); Any day now expect an announcement on Internment Camps with an historical significance; two weeks on the Isle of Man. Do they still do the birch?

I feel a great sense of impending doom around Everton - the possibility of relegation is 100% real, and so is losing all our financial clout (if we ever really had any) and I can completely envisage us dropping out of the Premier league, and continuing to drop like a stone down the divisions.

This no longer feels like a flight of fancy, but a reality.

Our situation feels entirely precarious at time of writing - I've seen nothing to encourage me on the pitch at all. These players are duds, our defence is shot to pieces, our defenders are Championship players at best and they wheel out Mason fucking Holgate to tell us they need to do better?! Jesus, the guy couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag and they scapegoat him. Give me strength.

There's no good news, I can't see us scoring a goal, nor can I see us stopping them. We play 5 of the top 6 in our last 12 games, won't win a single point from our away games and now we're losing 1-0 at home.

Honestly, we're going down, you can see it already - the trend is bang on point for us to finish bottom, let alone in the bottom 3. Add to that the financial farce of Moshiri/Usmanov and you have the perfect storm. Oh and Rafa.

Well done everyone at Everton, really, well done.

I sincerely hope he sells up so we can get rid of the second biggest buffoon at the club. Let’s face it if it was not for the stadium I’m sure the anger from the terraces would have focused on him and Bill rather than the manager and players.
How foolish have we also been as supporters to go along with the Moshiri takeover but knowing Bill, the number one buffoon was still in the background pulling strings on all things important. We are where we are today because of them.
Give me my club back without these two idiots, let Frank Lampard get on with trying to build his team and I’ll happily wait for Simone else to build a stadium.

Pete, we all know Moshiri does not know much about football, he has trusted people with his money to go out and invest, and build a squad, and to be fair he has certainly dipped into his pocket.

That then leads to the question, having pumped all that money into the club, who has wasted that money, previous Managers partly on very poor recruitment, but for me his biggest problem was leaving Bill to pull the strings, instead of bringing in professionals to run the club.

Bill has played him like a fiddle, when anything goes wrong it’s down to the Manager, it is down to the players, each time Bill has a scape goat to cover his arse, he has former players fighting his corner.

Soon as we had a protest, he made sure Raffa took the blame, brought in a new Manager and suddenly the heat is off him again, even now he knows Frank will be the next one inline.

Protests now will do nothing, it is not the time, we have to somehow try to rally together for now, but as soon as we are safe, or worst case scenario go down, we need to make a bloody big protest, so it never happens again, and we at least try to get Bill out of our club.

Brian @30. I am waiting to here that our beloved chairman is to be cryogenically frozen, so in the future he can be deemed still alive and his ‘can’t sack me’ clause remains legally active.

I am sure that Moshiri must have pretty much shot his bolt. Usmanov’s money has gone and in billionaire terms he wasn’t that rich at only £2.8 billion. His pot of cash much be much diminished by buying the club paying off debts and wasting half a billion on transfers. The club is in debt to him at nearly £700M. His income from USM has abruptly stopped. He is in effect unemployed at present. I can no longer see the ground move going ahead without Usmanov, especially if relegated. In my view he is going to have to find a buyer. The cash cow is no more.

If ever there was an example of having more fan consultation when appointing new owners of our club, this is it. The owner and board are self-serving, with cronyism at the heart of our great club. It is total mismanagement, with so many managers coming and going, so many mediocre players signed and hardly playing.

Whatever happens this season, the fans should be consulted more on what they want for our club. Having a fans rep on the board is a start, but what of the other thousands of fans, what of their opinions? An unbiased Questionnaire, with a comments box, handed out at the turnstiles would be a start!

Mal, great idea, and one we would all welcome, but it will never happen, even accepting that we never agree as a unit, as they (Board) would think they were being both undermined and proved to be feckless idiots! They wouldn't ever have that!

Any lawyers on here? Is it possible to acquire a banning order for Kenwright and Moshiri to ensure they are not allowed within a hundred miles of Goodison or any ground where Everton are playing?

Monica Lewinski got paid a fortune for being brought down to her knees so why shouldn't Everton get compo for mismanagement resulting in the onset of depression amongst supporters of Everton FC.

I missed a trick there – could have brought "Going Down" into the Monica Lewinski part.

I wrote on another thread about this. In capitalist terms, there is nothing necessarily ‘dodgy' about the oligarchs' money. They simply made the most of a ridiculously good opportunity handed to them.

The ‘dodgy' bit was always the morality of handing over the control of the natural resources of a massive country to a handful of people. Russia isn't the only place this has happened and most turn a blind eye to it if they are not directly affected; it's just business, free-market economics, blah, blah, blah.

We have dodginess in our own economy; not all ‘disruption' benefits the majority. The deliberate manipulation of the housing market to twist it to just another ‘haves / have nots' situation is something we should all be ashamed of.

There is certainly hypocrisy in only now decrying the oligarch wealth. There is no guarantee that any other billionaire will have any more success in transforming a club like Everton. Most successful businessmen have relied on more than pure intellect to get their wealth and I doubt that a football club is typically like any other business model.

The dodgy bit is in actuality a monopoly in return for complicity. They knew the deal they were making with an understanding to his world view. They have benefitted from a crappy little Power PR scheme that has hit hard times. They have all the rights to do whatever they want elsewhere, we wish to not be associated with them any longer. No hypocrisy and no apology requested.

Dale, tell me what in capitalism forbids a monopoly or trading money for influence?

The reality is that a separate moral framework has to be bolted onto free-market economics. That is what Western democratic choices are generally all about, and why globalisation has allowed those not hindered by such constraints to take-over as top dogs.

Too many are so dazzled by the trappings of wealth they don't stop to think about its origins. The only way to clean up football now would be to cap the wages at a level that an average local businessman could afford.

Si, I've weighed in a lot on these discussions and if it is about specific conditions or language I'm willing. If it devolves into some abstract defense of or attack on capitalism in the spirit of "Well, we do it too, don't we?" it is my opinion that events are well beyond that discussion. And that conclusion would surely mean watching football worse than what Everton has served up this season.

If you feel like I'm not giving you proper consideration or have dropped a phrase that doesn't allow you to get out, say so and I'll try a reasonable response.

Dale,

My reading of the thread was that a lot of it devolved into basically “Usmanov's wealth is now dirty money so good riddance” and “Moshiri isn't an expert on running a football club so he can take a running jump”. This seems like revisionism and lack of awareness of how the world has changed.

My counterpoint is that, because global capitalism (which does not automatically come with morals) has been allowed to have its head and then become enmeshed in our game without people really making a fuss about it for many years, looking for the extremely wealthy whose money isn't tainted in some way is like looking for the proverbial needle.

I don't understand the admiration that being very rich seems to almost automatically accrue, which seems to have led many being surprised that being extremely wealthy doesn't necessarily mean that your apparent business acumen will serve you well at running a football club.

I'm not necessarily defending the pair (I would like everyone to be denouncing Putin, but I can see that personally ‘insulting' the guy could put you on a very real hit list) but I don't believe we will automatically end up with anyone better.

Si

To my mind, the fact a Saudi consortium are looking at Chelsea says it all. Somehow because they're not white maybe? And tons of expats make a fortune tax-free in the Middle East?

We are cool with a regime that severs limbs for petty offences, funds terrorist group, bombs one of the poorest countries in the world, uses slave laborers from Africa and Asia, oppressed women, executes people who decide to leave Islam... but hey, move 500 miles nearer to us, have white skin, pal around with a tyrant and you're the epitome of evil.

I'm pretty tired of the people dismissing the “what about…” as the only reason for dismissing it is if you're a) selfish and only care about your own safety or b) you're racist and don't care about black or brown human beings. Putin is piece of evil shit. Abramovich is a shady, corrupt son of a bitch.

Crown Prince Mohamed? Is like Osama Bin Laden, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jimmy Saville and Stalin rolled into one. But somehow he is cool with Boris and irrelevant to most of the Western world right now.

Sir John Moores must surely be turning in his grave. And even his grandson has sold off.

I'm sure there'd be a few people interested in buying out FM, as long as the chairman doesn’t insist on hanging on.

Is anyone else of the opinion that, with all the high publicity around the sale of Chelsea, has that made Premier League teams that would be for sale more appealing to potential investors?

I've been very surprised by the amount of interest in them. Especially at the price.

I use the phrase "Don't make long term decisions based on short-term situations" when I'm dealing in business issues and, in fact, home issues too!

A question people ask me is, "What is short term and what is long term". My thought is that this depends on one's appetite for risk.

The Chinese definitely think long term. 10 years to them is short term. 100 years maybe. Our Australian governments think very short term because the chances are they will be kicked out within 3 years, so fickle is a large proportion of the voting population. Not sure about UK anymore as I haven't lived there for 35+years.

In terms of their strategies, the likes of Usmanov are not likely thinking this is a short-term turmoil regarding Ukraine, eventually a truce of some kind will take place and then, in EPL terms, all things will be back to where they were before. Having hidden their gazillions and likely still earning big ones, they couldn't give a shit.

USA under Biden control appears unfortunately toothless, the USA weakness first highlighted by crazy guy Trump, particularly in terms of the 6 January 2021 invasion of Capitol Hill.

So, in EPL terms, it shouldn't take too long to get back to normal and we might by then have done well enough to return to the EPL ourselves, that is if we are relegated. Let's hope we're not, though.

Kieran #49 Bob #51 I'm with you guys 👌

Michael @54
To be fair to the BBC, they could hardly ignore the information, I don't think it has become a witch-hunt yet, but I'm sure it'll set the hounds off soon.

Usmanov's Assets

Bob #52, Biden may come off as an addled grandfatherly type, but he's anything but. His sanctions are crushing the Russian economy, the US has been quietly providing training and weapons to the Ukraine for months, and most of all he is leading a re-unified Western coalition that is following his practical and moral leadership without dispute or dissent, which almost never happens.

I guarantee you that Putin doesn't consider Biden toothless. Biden is taking huge bites out of Putin's ass while the Ukrainian army is punching him in the face.

Mike Gaynes @ 55

Hello Mike,

"The US has been quietly providing training and weapons to Ukraine for months, "

Absolutely true, but in my humble opinion and nearly every retired 4-star US general that has commented: "Not enough and not on time".

I'd like to draw your attention to a fact of this horrific war, last July when the build-up to Putin's evil war of conquest really began, 70,000 Russian soldiers and their material suddenly turned up on the Russian border, northeast of Kyiv, and built bases.

Prior to this threatening movement of troops, President Trump had authorised a very large and lethal shipment of American hardware to Ukraine, designed to deter Russian interest in Ukraine.

This shipment was due to arrive at the same time as the Russian troop movements, having been signed off by President Trump a year or so earlier. So, we now have President Biden in power, this man of "practical and moral leadership", what did he do? he cancelled the shipment of arms when Ukraine needed them most. What must the Ukrainians have felt at this betrayal?

This cancellation of arms, and the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden, gave Putin all the encouragement he could have wanted and what amounts to a green light by Biden. Cancellation a shocking appeasement and the withdrawal, incompetence.

"I guarantee you that Putin doesn't consider Biden toothless. Biden is taking huge bites out of Putin's ass while the Ukrainian army is punching him in the face."

After all this has finished, there are some events I will remember; one of them is the press conference in the White House after Biden announced the sanctions package. I watched his frustration at the press corp when they took the attitude "Is that it?" He began squirming while explaining how severe these sanctions were, but the press corp and the public at large wouldn't have it and also some of his partners in the Nato alliance viewed it as weak.

He then came back a few days later with the Swift embargo in place, having been forced to do it out of embarrassment.

Have you ever heard of Neville Chamberlin? He goes down as the greatest appeaser in history, the behaviour of Biden has more than an alarming hint of Chamberlin about it.

Ukraine's forces have been intelligently lead and its soldiers are so brave in battle, but their job and protection of the civilian population could be easier with deployment of shore-to-ship missiles and ground-to-air medium- to long-range missiles.

This war could take a sinister turn if Putin decides to really start using his conventional artillery against population centers, he's running out of "smart missiles" and could resort to "dumb bombs" everywhere. His artillery pieces are just sitting in the fields unmolested for the most part and firing away, Biden is not providing anywhere near the capability of taking these out, he's just drip-feeding Ukraine.

And what about his reluctance to supply 1980s vintage Mig 29s, as this might anger Russia? And it is easy enough to get them in there, if the will exists, as has been said by many a military expert.

I'm not looking at Biden through any rose-tinted spectacles, that's for sure.

Everton has multiple issues that need to be addressed but Moshiri walking away is not the top of the list. If Newcastle are an example even clubs in the lower parts of the league can find big pocket buyers.
The priority for Everton are the next eleven league games and building on the current three point gap.
Moshiri is here for the long term, his ego and the embarrassment associated with his time here will make him reluctant to jump ship.

@ Tom Harvey. Biden admin delivered $275 million in aid to Ukraine in 2021. Trump delayed delivery of $400 million in aid over some pathetic political gripe and only sent Javelins when persuaded that Ukraine would want to buy more.

Biden nor Trump are sufficiently intelligent enough but then again that is true of most modern leaders but I am pretty sure Zelensky is grateful to be dealing wirh Biden who delivers rather than Trump who always want two quid to his one pro quo.

So I guess that Tory piece of shit that was offering Elite Lifestyle enhancement advice to the oligarchs has rolled up that operation huh? It's all okay until it isn't. Take your pick, it could be Stein's Law- what cannot go on forever doesn't or an alternative is the American Great Recession culprit- IBGYBG, I'll be gone and you'll be gone before it all blows up.

Sorry but if some are going to attack Biden the Tories are fair game.