The UK Government have raised concerns over the suitability of 777 Partners as potential takeover candidates of Everton.
That’s according to the Daily Mail’s hatchet man, Matt Hughes, whose latest article concerning the Blues claims that Whitehall officials would caution the Premier League that the Florida-based investment outfit might not pass their new owners and directors test.
Specifically, Hughes cites the firm’s managing partner Josh Wander, who pleaded no contest for drug offences 20 years ago, and 777’s sister company Sutton Park who have been accused of multiple cases of fraud, offering illegal loans and failing to pay debts amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
777 Partners appear to have re-emerged as the most likely to launch either a full takeover of Everton or take a partial stake in the club after MSP Sports Capital’s proposed £150m invesment collapsed this month.
Doubts have been raised about 777’s ability to raise sufficient funds to either match or exceed what MSP were offering but in the event they were able to strike a deal with Everton’s majority shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, the supposedly raised the benchmarks for Premier League owners and directors would come into play and could be a significant roadblock.
However, Wander remains committed to the idea of beefing up his firm’s portfolio of football interests which include stakes in Standard Liege, Genoa, Hertha Berlin, Vasco da Gama, and Red Star FC.
“We have a strong view that there’s a new wave of commercialisation coming to football,” he is quoted as in the Financial Times. [Football clubs] have done a horrible job of commercialising the product.
“It’s so absurd to me that people say we’re not serious when we’ve bought [into] seven clubs in the last 18 months. Is there anyone in the world that’s been more serious about buying football clubs in history than Josh Wander?”