Long-time Board member and Chairman of Everton, Bill Kenwright CBE has died, the club and his theatre company have announced.
The Liverpool-born theatre impresario had battled ill-health for some time and was recently admitted to intensive care due to complications following surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his liver.
He returned home to begin his recovery two weeks ago but it has now been revealed that he passed away last night at the age of 78 surrounded by his loved ones. “The club has lost a chairman, a leader, a friend, and an inspiration,” a statement from Everton read.
The club’s majority shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, sent his own message via evertonfc.com in which he expressed his sadness at the passing of his “great friend”.
“There can be no mistaking that Bill loved Everton Football Club,” Moshiri wrote. “He spoke with an infectious enthusiasm about every aspect of Everton, from the legends of yesteryear to his unconditional support for everyone that wears the Blue shirt and represents the club.
“He admired the hard work, dedication and effort of every member of staff across the club and Everton in the Community but most of all he recognised and empathised with the passion, loyalty and support all the Everton teams have had from Evertonians be that at home, away or abroad.
He was a special soul, a man successful in so many different walks of life. We will miss him but never forget him.”
A life-long Everton fan and one-time small-part actor on Coronation Street, Kenwright built his career as a nationally renowned producer of plays. He was first elected to the Everton Board of Directors on 23 October 1989, and led a successful takeover over the Toffees in 1999, five years after his first consortium was edged out by the superior financial muscle of his predecessor at the Goodison helm, Peter Johnson.
Bill initially decided to take the title Vice-President and installed former supremo, Sir Philip Carter, as Chairman but eventually took the helm himself in 2004 when Carter became Life President until his passing in 2015.
Though the first decade of Kenwright’s tenure as Chairman would see much-needed stability on the pitch under his appointment of David Moyes as manager in 2002, the club’s financial footing was gradually eroded as the Board battled to keep the team competitive on the increasingly un-level playing field of the Premier League.
Kenwright had always maintained that he was the ordinary fan from the Boys Pen who had “done good” and realised the dream of owning his beloved Blues but that he was merely the custodian waiting for someone with deeper pockets and much bigger resources to eventually step in and buy him out.
His self-styled “24/7 search” for a billionaire to match the likes of Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City and Roman Abramovich in an increasingly unbalanced English Premier League finally ended in late February 2016 when it was announced that Moshiri, the British-Iranian businessman, was to acquire a 49.9% stake in Everton, a precursor to a full takeover at a later date.
Moshiri eventually increased his holdings in Everton to 94.1% of the outstanding shares while Kenwright’s position was reduced to less than 2%.
In recent years, as the club has struggled on and off the pitch with a worsening financial outlook and two close calls with relegation, there had been loud calls from sections of the fanbase for Kenwright to either step down or for Moshiri to replace him as Chairman to bring new blood, ideas and expertise into the Boardroom and to the top of the club.
Initially on security grounds, he and the rest of the Board remained absent from the Directors Box at Goodison Park for the second half of last season, with the expectation among many being that the owner might initiate a clean sweep of the hierarchy over the summer.
However, Kenwright was retained in his role as chairman following the departures of CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale and Finance Director Grant Ingles to help facilitate a takeover of Everton by American investment firm, 777 Partners. That deal, expected to be finalised by the end of the year, must now proceed with the help of either an interim chairman or new hire.
His passing means that he will never get to see the club move into its new home on the banks of the Mersey, a dream he first tried to realise with the King’s Dock proposal but was able to eventually set in motion with Moshiri’s help at Bramley-Moore Dock, where the new stadium is a year or so away from completion.
Bill is survived by his partner of 29 years, Jenny Seagrove, and his daughter, Lucy, and his grandchildren.