Colm's Corner

Columnist: Colm Kavanagh

Fortress Goodison? The Art of Deflection

14 January 2005

Rooney: £££ millions still to come?

The clock was slowly heading for the top of the hour and time for one or two last calls on the midweek 6-0-6 phone in on BBC 5Live – the topic was Thomas Gravesen and the caller, an Evertonian from Birmingham. 

“Do you think he’ll go?” asked the radio presenter. 

“NO!” said the Brummie Evertonian, in defiance, “it doesn’t make business sense, we’ve got £10 million more coming in for Rooney, the Fortress Sports Fund and True Blue Holdings….we’ve got investment, we don’t need to sell.” 

Defiant to the last.  With his head well and truly buried in the sand…

But it got me thinking – not for the first time!  Just how many Evertonians out there look no further than what’s printed on the back pages for their diet of news about Everton?  Their only sources of information may well be the Liverpool Echo, the Daily Post or the nationals.  Heaven forbid, they’ll treat as gospel every word uttered on Sky Sport News.  “It must be true – yer man on ‘You’re On Sky Sports’ said so it last night!”  And Rodney Marsh agreed with him!  Not everyone has access to the Internet — and most who do tend to use the Official Everton website as a necessary port of call for news updates surrounding the Club.

Then we have the likes of our good friend, Alan Nixon, who has license to write whatever he likes.  This past week alone, he wrote about the possibility of David Thompson coming to us from Blackburn.  With his editor requesting an article not longer than 300 words he also included the names of Tottenham’s Simon Davies and Arsenal’s Jermaine Pennant – just for good measure and to cover all angles!  Jason Koumas was also mentioned but only as a “surprise capture” (Nixon’s words, not mine!) so we’ll dismiss that one as a filler.  He also wrote, a few weeks back, that it was a possibility that Thomas Gravesen, and I quote, “could be pitched into the mouth watering Champions League clash between Manchester United and AC Milan in February... by the Italians.”  Wonderful. 

Is this the same Thomas Gravesen, Mr Nixon, who you said was days away from moving to Glasgow Celtic if a fee could be agreed, last July?  Almost as big a beaut of a story as David Moyes and his ‘shock swooping’ for Newcastle’s Kieron Dyer – incidentally exclusively revealed in the Sunday People on the day we travelled to Newcastle!  The Sunday before that Newcastle game he wrote about David Moyes swooping for Tottenham’s Robbie Keane – for £7M no less!  People read this stuff and take it at face value.  It must be true, it was in the paper…

Which leads me nicely to those three words on every Evertonian’s lips for months now:  Fortress Sports Fund.  Where is it, folks?  I’d wager a guess that a vast majority of Evertonians out there are convinced this cash injection is already a done deal — sure, hasn’t it been pretty much reported that way ever since we first heard those three little words?

“Alternative Funding Secured” screamed the exclusive headline on the Official Everton website, as the clock ticked towards the transfer deadline:  David Moyes would indeed have funds available to strengthen his depleted squad.  And this was before we sold Wayne Rooney!  Furthermore, the Club were eager to stress that this alternative funding was not the Fortress money.  Excellent, we must be swimming in money…

Of course, the transfer deadline (1 September 2004) came and went with no sign of this alternative funding being spent on players.  In the eyes of many, Everton’s financial woes were easing.  Just a shame that the transfer window had closed, eh?

With the transfer window closed, the silly season could be left behind us and we could concentrate more on the business in hand – on the pitch.  Depleted we may well have become, squad-wise, but a minor miracle was happening before our eyes.  Fantastic!  But proof that the silly season had not quite ended came with the Chairman losing the run of himself in an interview with BBC 5Live’s Jonathan Pierce two days after we found ourselves moving into third place in the League, following a fine 1-0 win away at Portsmouth.  I know some find it tiresome but I believe it’s worth refreshing a few memories.  Here’s what Bill Kenwright said to Jonathan Pierce back in September:

Jonathan Pierce: “After their splendid start to the Premiership season, where they’re unbeaten since the opening day, there’s more good news tonight for Goodison Park fans.  Chairman Bill Kenwright has exclusively told Sport on Five that up to £30m of new investment will be available to the club in time for January’s transfer window.  It follows months of turmoil in which his own position as Chairman has come under threat.  Now with the side lying third in the table he says it’s time to look forward to better days…”

Bill Kenwright: “Obviously the big point now is the January transfer window and that’s when we’ve earmarked it for and hopefully it’ll be in by then.”

JP: “How much money are we talking about here?”

BK: “Well there’s two tranches…there’s an original 29.9% and then possibly some more.  So, you know, thirteen to fourteen million and then another fifteen million down the line. So there’s a possible twenty eight, twenty nine million…”

JP: “And just explain how it’s going to work in terms of who’s going to run the club in the future..”

BK: “Me!”   (JP laughs)

BK: “No, it’s a chap called Chris Samuelson, Jonathan, who runs a sports fund and he’s coming in with a group of investors but basically he will join the board and the investment group will just be part of the shareholding.  I will remain as chairman.  There won’t be any major dramatic difference.”

JP: “The stories that we read in the newspapers about Russian investment.  What was that all about?”

BK: “Stories in newspapers.  Simple as that.  There might well have been Russian interest at the start and I saw the story in the Sunday Times too and I saw the names mentioned and in fact I met the son of the man mentioned but nothing more than that. Story in a newspaper.”

JP: “Has it calmed down in the Boardroom?”

BK: “It’s all calmed down.  I’ve never talked about boardroom level and I never will.  I think it’s all calmed down now and I just want to get on with what Everton Football Club is all about which is supporting the manager and that’s what I’ve always tried to do in the years I’ve been semi in charge there.”

JP: “It seems to me though Bill – and it must hurt you – because you’ve put so much into the club, a club you’ve supported for the best part of fifty years and it must have really pained you…”

BK: “It was a horrible summer that I think I’ve mentioned several times.  And it brought a lot of hurt and a lot of pain like it would to any Evertonian who was faced with what I was being faced with.  And some of the nonsense that was being said and yeah it did hurt me.  It was very hurtful.  But you know football’s an odd game and you’ve got to bounce back.  The only contribution I felt I could make was a little bit of dignity and just working twenty four hours a day. 

“It was a difficult summer for everyone at Goodison.  One forgets the staff at Goodison who, you know, had trouble times and certainly David Moyes.  I think more than anything this summer was a real bonding period for him and for myself.  We’ve had two and a half extraordinary years of real friendship but during the summer it became even deeper.  He certainly, I know, proved everyone absolutely wrong in the negative predictions about the club during the close season and I hope maybe I’ve done my bit too. 

“My main real feeling of absolute confirmation is with David Moyes and what he’s done.  He had a difficult start to the season, a dreadful end to last season – he knew what had to be done this season and he went out and he did it.  There’s a great deal to be said for the kind of squad he’s got at the moment because they are playing for their manager and for that blue jersey.  That’s what every Evertonian wants to see, to go to a game like the Portsmouth game yesterday and to see five men behind the ball every time a Portsmouth player gets it.  And to see Lee Carsley flinging himself at a blocked ball.  Tim Cahill doing the same.  David Weir doing the same.  Alan Stubbs with a bandage on.  You could go through the entire eleven players and say every one of them was a hero but they have been all season.

“I keep on thinking Rudyard Kipling at the moment. My favourite poem,

‘If a man can look at success and failure
and treat both those imposters as the same
then he’ll be a stronger man my son…’

“I would be lying to you if I didn’t say I need an operation to take the smile off my face.  I would be lying to you if I didn’t say I gaze at that league table, Jonathan — I just gaze at it and gaze at it and gaze at it.  It’s probably the most magical sight in the world at the moment to me.”

JP: “Can it get better, in the January shop window – you have the money from Wayne Rooney don’t you…”

BK: “Yeah”

JP: “You have dealt with a certain amount of debt and you do have this investment.  What sort of level of signing will Everton be making?”

BK: “Look, I’m not going to be telling you the amount of money David’s got but David knows the amount of money he’s got and he’s very happy with it.  We have to look at fresh faces in January.  We have to look at fresh faces in the summer.  But we also know that there’s a small squad of nineteen or so players there at the moment and you don’t in any way want to effect what he has created by talking big money here.  Now that is not the chairman trying to back out of the fact that the manager has to have money to spend. That is the chairman saluting the manager and his players and saying listen, what we’re going to do is support that in January and we’re going to support it in the summer.  Can it get better?  Please God!”

JP: “Meanwhile young Wayne is going to play a part, we believe, for Manchester United in his first Champions League match tomorrow.  What are your thoughts on that, Wayne Rooney?”

BK: “Good luck to the boy.  You have to.  He’s given me an awful lot of thrills over the last two and a half years and I’ve watched him like every Evertonian and we were so thrilled when he was in that blue jersey and I think you just have to say he’s moved on.  He desperately wanted to move on.  He desperately wanted to join Manchester United, he’s done it.  I wish him success and I hope we beat Manchester United when they come to Goodison.”

JP: “Are you a little bit upset the way that it all ended…some of the fans reaction?”

BK: “I’m a bit upset about a lot of things.  But in the main I know that every football club has a true beating heart of thousands and thousands and thousands of fans who know what’s good and know what’s right.  Everton does too.  For every one who maybe questioned there are thousands who know what goes on.  And you just have to keep telling yourself.  You’ve just got to wake up in the morning and know you’re going to do the right thing and go to bed at night thinking well at least I did the right thing.  I would never do anything… you know this and I know this… and I think every Evertonian knows this.  I would never do anything that would harm my football club.  It’s not in me.  I would rather walk away.  I’d rather be back in the boy’s pen.  All I want to do is support Everton both as a chairman and as a fan.  That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was six years old.  It’s a privilege and it’s always been a privilege for me to be an Evertonian.  It’s as simple as that.”

JP: “Bill, you know I’m not an Everton fan but I grew up loving Harvey, Kendall and Ball.  And quality like that.  I’ve watched what you’ve done at the club and congratulations for the start you’ve had.  Thank you very much for talking to me tonight – I just wish you hadn’t beaten Bristol City in the Carling Cup.”

BK: “That was a close one…”  

I particularly like the line – “For every one who maybe questioned, there are thousands who know what goes on”.   Somehow, I believe it to be the other way around, Mr Chairman!  Do they really? 

We have waited…and waited………and waited.  Yet still no sign of Mr Christopher Samuelson's wonderfully named chums coming up trumps with this ‘investment’ into our Club.  Despite assurances at the EGM, on 5Live and at the AGM, from the Chairman, this investment remains unseen.  The masses continue to anticipate this money incoming – speculating who we’ll be spending our millions on at length – while those who dare to raise doubts about the Fortress money are hammered for being so negative.  Particularly at a time when Everton are achieving some success where it matters most: on the pitch.

Thankfully, for the Chairman, we are enjoying the current season.  This fact deflects attention away from the shocking ill health of our Club financially. 

• Hands up how many Evertonians know we’re forty-odd million pounds in debt? 
• Hands up how many Evertonians know that we were given a mysterious “increase in borrowings” of £10.4 million last March, which the Chairman stated at the AGM was an advance on our money from BskyB – for our Premiership survival... survival which was not secured at that time! 
• Hands up how many Evertonians think we’re sitting on a transfer kitty worth millions?  If that £10.4million came as an advance from BSkyB then I would dearly like to know what BSkyB advance other clubs.

After the AGM in December 2004 we had the Official Everton website boldly claiming - “Kenwright Confident!” – where the Chairman revealed that “the £12.8 million generated from the deal will not be used to fund any potential January transfers as that money is already in place.”  Indeed, the money from the Fortress Sports Fund was going through the laborious stages of the banking system! 

All fears from shareholders who voiced their concern at the AGM were allayed, we were told by the Official website – again, that’s excellent news.  Back to speculating where we’re going to spend the new found wealth!  With this Fortress money in place, Mr Kenwright said “It’s something that’s hopefully being sorted and there’s a bit of light coming at the end of the tunnel.”  Agreed Bill – however this light at the end of the tunnel?  Perhaps it’s the light of an on-coming train?

Anyway, enough of my unabashed cynicism.   On 22 December 2004, Christopher Samuelson himself came on Sport on Five to assure the highly skeptical presenter that the money was on it's way, and would be in place not by Christmas but by the end of January, following approval of the deal at an EGM of Everton FC Co Ltd.  [Listen to the .mp3 audio clip] The following day, we were informed on the Official Everton website that the Chairman could indeed confirm that the deal bringing in the Fortress money was as good as done – “Bill Confirms Deal”. 

Unfortunately, despite the headline alluding to something not quite yet true (allaying shareholders fears perhaps?) it included that time-honoured word ‘hope’ – which meant something entirely different to the headline above it!  Instead of confirming it as a done deal, Bill ‘hoped’ to conclude a deal with the Fortress Sports Fund.  Which makes a bit of a mockery of the headline declaring it as fact, does it not?  Not quite what it says on the tin…

A month on since those bold statements (of fact) from our Club’s Chairman and still we await further news of our missing Fortress Sports Fund investors.  Before we even consider its prospects of being ratified at an EGM, we have to see it being presented to the Club!  That EGM requires 28 days advance notice, and has still not been called.  Come on Bill – where’s this money gone?  Did it ever exist?  There’s a lot of Evertonians out there waiting for answers and we’ve only got sixteen league games left before the season’s over.

What’s another year eh, Bill?

In the meantime, another important player exits despite the Official line initially suggesting otherwise, no contact made.  I suppose, once that fax finally arrived, the hand that feeds was well and truly bitten?  Not what I would have expected from a Big Club with European ambitions and so much investment incoming…

Through all this, our Brummie Evertonian, the last caller on the midweek 6-0-6 phone in, just might begin to feel as though someone’s not been telling him the truth about Everton’s potential financial windfall incoming.

But it said so on the Official Everton website.  And the back of The Echo…

Indeed.

Colm Kavanagh

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