Liverpool Echo dismiss Daily Mail's Matt Hughes

Is it loan repayments? Is it the stadium?

Chelsea have had little success yet spent money like it's going out of fashion for seasons now, yet nowhere is it stated that they are in dire straits, and they are not the only one.

With the loans we have and a stadium to pay for our total debt is around £1 billion. When you consider our income is around £200 million a season it's no wonder we're in trouble.

Yes, we have sold players, but the fees get paid over a period, not in one lump sum.

Also, our wage bill at one point was 96% of our income. That's crazy. I think it's come down to around 80% now, still way too high. Our commercial income is also a joke.

Other clubs have moved stadium, our payroll is now mid table, a lot lower than the likes of Villa, and yet the FFP problems and chronic debt, seem to be solely preserves of this club.

It was well publicized that our commercial department couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery, but if the incomings and outgoings of money were so catastrophically mismanaged, why wasn't this blindingly obvious and highlighted at the time?

I'll try and have a stab at this, and then direct you to a 'professional Everton observer and commentator' at the end.

When Peter Johnson was ostensibly removed in a coup d'etat by Philip Carter, backed of course by one WIlliam Kenwright CBE in 1998, the club owned Goodison Park, and Bellefield training ground and had no debt, with approximately £30M in the bank.

Apparently, the reason Johnson had to go was the poor performances on the pitch?

Carter and Kenwright, then allied with Paul Gregg, promised investment in the playing staff, and they would actively look to procure or develop a new stadium for Everton to help progress in the then fairly new Premier League.

A short period of not too unrestrained spending went on, with the obvious now folklore about the Kings Dock Stadium and other 'pipe-dream' investors were due to come on-board.

The main crisis came when Carter started to take a back seat to Kenwright, who had a falling out with Paul Gregg re the construction of Kings Dock, and the realignment of the suggested board restructuring with Gregg effectively taking control (The Chairmanship) and Kenwright being pushed sideways.

To Mr Kenwright, this was abhorrent, so he declined the proposal, and using money borrowed from Paul Gregg's wife (I kid you not!), he bought him out (Paul G that is).

That was the start to the financial crumbling of Everton Football Club, and the ever-increasing number of fantasies, delusions and lies! The main reason being Mr Kenwright just didn't have the revenue or resources to repay the loan.

This led to the ousting of Carter as Chairman and the start of the reign of Chairman Bill (no longer 'Mr Kenwright'), owner in all but name now.

Again, as recorded and repeated on this site, Chairman Bill started to sell off the family jewels to pay for his debt; and allegedly, to help fund his (at that time circa 2004-6) failing theatre business, and its acquisitions. All alleged, I add.

However, what is certain, is that the club in nine short years (1998 to 2007) went from being debt free, and having a modest cash reserve to being without an owned training ground, Bellefield being sold in September 2007, and Finch Farm being built by the club, but sold to Liverpool Council, and still to this day rented back..? We went deep into the Red!!

Loans were taken out against, or secured against Goodison Park and other administrative assets; and the lies, or fantasies, and the debt kept mounting up, all the while (again allegedly) Chairman Bill was looking for new investors or owners for the club to take the club forward.

Yet all the time asset stripping the club to pay the debts that he had incurred on it. (The selling of Rooney and Arteta being prime examples of this.)

Also later becoming common knowledge, was that he turned down Sheikh Mansour of Man City notoriety around the 2003-4 period? Why? Because Mansour didn't want to keep Chairman Bill at the club, and the Sheikh wanted a new broom approach... This again was abhorrent to Chairman Bill, so he said "No ta!"

By the time Moyes had left at the end of 2012-13, Chairman Bill was getting desperate, hence the Fellaini sale. The search for an investor was becoming more critical.

When Moshiri was heralded as the new 'owner', or eventual major shareholder in 2016, the club was mortgaged to the hilt, and the quality of the playing staff was being constantly pared back to allow the club to continue to run, eg, the sales of Stones and Barkley, while the club had approximately £50M of unserviced debt.

The first thing Moshiri had to do, was to pay off this debt – which he did (to his credit)!

The rest of Moshiri's monies, as is well documented, was splurged on ill-advised player purchases, poor player sales, ill-advised management appointments, the Director of Football experiment, extortionate agents fees (Kia Joorabchian anyone?), and the Board's renumeration!!

Chairman Bill stayed in power (still playing with his train set!), and maintained a large element of control, and was paid handsomely for doing what he had since he joined Everton in 1986. Which was to divide and conquer, and to maximise what was in it for him to the fullest extent!

So, with all that being said, when Moshiri had his external financial purse strings cut with the onset of the Russian invasion of the Ukraime, all bets were off.

We immediately lost approximately £37M per year in 'Russian aligned' sponsorship, and the promise of cheap materials and extra investment for the new stadium abruptly stopped! Not to mention the alleged fees for the new stadium's naming rights circa £200M over 10 years.

This alongside the period of reckless expenditure, meant that Moshiri had just poured approximately £800M+ into a black hole!

The amount needed to pay wages, pay rents and pay for the new stadium construction outweighed the club's approximate annual income of £200M, with approximate annual outgoings of £440-460M. Something doesn't add up!?

As you have stated, a contributory factor to that is a pathetic commercial and sponsorship performance over a nearly 25-year period, not maximising ticketing prices and associated matchday income, and the fact that instead of cash injections being used to keep the business running, the Club ended up using credit as a means to continue to operate.

Though we can't knock Moshiri here after investing over £800M+ of his 'own' cash (probably nearer £400M of his, and £400M of Uncle Ali's cash) but, he allowed Chairman Bill the freedom to create the money-pit situation! Hence why we currently find ourselves in this financial quagmire.

To cut to the chase (maybe I should have done this earlier?):

Moshiri thought giving money to a venal, prodigal waster (and chancer?) like Chairman Bill, that he could achieve success, and at that time didn't mind throwing money at what can only now be described as a vanity project!

Moshiri wanted the stadium, before he had a team regularly competing at the top of the table, bringing the associated rewards of that. With a management infrastructure, and commercial and financial systems that were not, and are not, fit for purpose in the modern Premier League.

In other words, he spent rashly, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

The club has a very small (by comparism) income stream, and a very large amount of debt and operating costs to service.

I hope that long-winded and time-consuming effort helps a little John?

If not, have a perusal of this by some fellow called Paul 'the Esk' Quinn;

In the bleak mid-winter, the curious case of Everton FC

All credit of course goes to Paul.

Good wishes John, and if you made it to the end. Chapeau mon ami, chapeau! :/)

I think our financial problems predated Bill Kenwright's takeover.

Backtracking to 1998, the end of Johnson's tenure as owner really began with his sale of Duncan Ferguson in October 1998. That was a sale dictated by the financial position after his summer splurge on John Collins, Olivier Dacourt, Marco Materazzi and Ibrahima Bakayoko.

Fans were in uproar after the sale of Ferguson. The manager, Walter Smith, said he knew nothing about it until the deal was done on the evening of a 1-0 home win against Newcastle. Johnson's position was widely regarded as untenable and the club became available for purchase. There was no queue of willing and able bidders.

At the end of the 1998-99 season, we sold Materazzi and Dacourt to balance the books. Plainly we were already stumbling financially in what became an ongoing struggle to be competitive on the pitch.

I am no fan of Kenwright, however there was no talk of financial disaster when Moshiri arrived. Moyes (who I am a fan of) had Plucky Little Everton with nowhere near enough money to move forward, but it sold its best players because they wanted to play in a club where they could win things (and of course, get paid handsomely in the process). That was the law of the jungle if you weren't one of the Sky 4 darlings.

Also, if the sanctioning of Usmanov and his billions by the government put us in this mess, then surely any lawyer worth his salt, would have been able to successfully prevent any PRS penalty.

This seems to leave us with Moshiri. But how is it that the guy who gets to be a billionaire by Accountancy is unable to do simple maths? He, through utter clowns like Koeman, wasted hundreds of millions on players.

But that is traditionally the way the monied clubs usually bought success, Harding's Chelsea, The Glazers' Man Utd, Hicks and Gillett's Liverpool. For every Torres, there were 3 Aquilanis. Maybe our problem was we bought no Torreses and 6 Aquilanis. The spending though, never led to reports of impending financial ruin for any of them.

Oh, and Simon, I don't read serious articles by anyone with 'The' as their middle name.

Were you a fan of Bill Kenwright? I just can't make my mind up reading your response.

Interesting new "facts" you have discovered.