View from the Blue
Columnist: Lyndon Lloyd
Role Reversal
6 August, 2004
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Bill Kenwright: Deafening silence from Mr Soundbyte himself |
So, a week on since the not-so-deadline and we have no better idea of
where Everton Football Club is heading. Friday 30th July was supposed
to be D-Day � the day when Bill Kenwright either announced that he had
managed to cobble together an investment package to rival or trump that
proposed by fellow director Paul Gregg or that he was dissolving True
Blue Holdings and stepping down as Chairman.
Instead of progress, however, we have been stuck with the continuing
impasse which has benefited no one and only served to further
impact David Moyes's preparations for the new season. It has also provided
the perfect conditions for Paul Stretford to continue his strategy of
keeping Wayne Rooney and a pen as far away as possible from the five-year
contract offered him by the club.
In the interim, Gregg has maintained the pressure on Kenwright by keeping the issue in the media spotlight, managing to mostly recover from a near-catastrophic blunder on Friday afternoon where he revealed his primary financial backer as Lord Grantchester, only for the Labour peer to reject the assertion in a statement on Monday.
Fortunately for Gregg, Grantchester then clarified his position with a second announcement which confirmed his support for wider investment in Everton as proposed by Gregg but steered clear of suggesting that he was funding Gregg's takeover bid. The Lord's involvement depends solely on the dissolution of True Blue — the company comprising Kenwright, Gregg, Jon Woods and former director, Arthur Abercromby — that controls the club with a 72% stake.
Kenwright, in a situation that represents a direct role-reversal between
himself an Gregg, has maintained deathly silence ever since a statement
of his own last Friday evening which, while restating his insistence that
until he sees written proof of the existence of Gregg's investors and
their plans he will refuse to agree to the dissolution of True Blue, also
contained an enormous PR gaffe of his own. The theatre impresario claimed
that the Friday deadline was "fictitious," made up by Gregg
to stage a "media event," but he had either forgotten or not
seen the press release posted on the Official Everton website outlining
30th July as the day when the club's future would be decided. Presumably,
as Chairman, he would have sanctioned the statement; if not, he had five
days in which to deny it. Instead, he tried to dodge the Friday deadline
and painted himself as, at best, a fool and, at worst, a liar.
At this stage, it is all about perception. While Gregg will continue
to battle the supporters' distrust of his motives — at least until
he has the opportunity to prove he has Everton's best interests at heart
— he is the only one who appears to have a solid plan and who truly
grasps the immediacy of the danger of relegation and the financial catastrophe
that would entail.
Kenwright, meanwhile, is being undermined by his complicity in a decade
of decline at Goodison, the inability to find a fresh and consistent stream
of investment over the past five years, and his dogged refusal to consider
dissolving True Blue Holdings, presumably because of the dilution of his
stock that that would entail. His tendency to retreat from the media when
the chips are down was revealed during the darkest days of the Kings Dock
fiasco and his absence from the spotlight this week can only mean that
he is against the ropes again in the face of Gregg's PR strategy.
He insisted last week that he was continuing his duties as Chairman: namely,
finding a new CEO, helping David Moyes's search for squad reinforcements
and finding potential investors of his own, but so far he has absolutely
nothing to show on all counts. That is not to say that he hasn't made
progress in any of those areas but it is patently obvious that he cannot
achieve aims one and two without aim three... and he has had five years
to find someone — anyone — willing to plough significant investment
into Everton FC without wanting representation on the Board.
Two questions have to be asked, one of the Board and one of the supporters. Firstly, if the supporters hadn't vented their anger at the Manchester
City game on the last day of the season and hadn't pressed Kenwright and
the Board with their 10 questions, would we have seen such clear attempts
to solve the club's problems as we have seen so far this summer (e.g.
Dunford sacked, Carter and Tamlin moved aside, Birch appointed as Chief Executive, etc)?
If it is true that Gregg's frustration with Kenwright's inability or
unwillingness to address the problems of attracting investment boiled
over 18 months ago then, yes, we might have seen the issue come to a head
as it has done. Gregg has clearly grown impatient with the fact that the
current constitution of True Blue is preventing outside money from flowing
into the club — after all, would you pump millions of your own money
into an organisation without being able to have a say in how that organisation
was to be run? It is also clear, however, that Gregg's momentum has been
greatly increased by anger and frustration among the fanbase who, motivated
by the belief that without significant investment in the team, Everton
are in very real danger of being relegated this coming season and the
fear of losing David Moyes, have left the Board in no doubt that things
have to change and quickly.
Secondly, do we as fans want a saviour? Or salvation for Everton Football
Club? � and there is a difference. The romantic group that we are, we get
caught up in the notion of a Lord Grantchester riding in on a white horse
to cure all the club's ills with the stroke of a pen but the reality is
that Grantchester isn't interested in fulfilling such a conspicuous role. What Everton really needs is a business brain to implement a solid plan
to right the ship because the Blue blood passion route just isn't working.
Seeing through our understandable cynicism, brought on by the all-too
recent Peter Johnson experience, Gregg is saying all the right things about
the need for restructuring the club from top to bottom. Critics of Gregg
fear he will become Johnson Mk II, but all his rhetoric so far suggests
that he doesn't want to control the club single-handedly in a Chairman-type
role, nor does he expect to be at the club for the long haul. [It's also
worth noting that True Blue under Kenwright have replicated the errors
of Red Peter's regime: they have presided over a catalogue of PR and commercial
cock-ups, driven the overdraft up to its limit and spent money on players
that simply wasn't there.]
Without saying as much in yesterday's various fans' group meetings,
Gregg's
intention is to reduce the debt, put the club back on a level footing,
increase revenue and thereby increase Everton's value. At that point,
new buyers can invest in the club and allow Gregg to either get back his
initial £7M stake or improve upon it — indeed, he even hinted
yesterday that he would be prepared to invest further in Everton if he
knew it was moving in the right direction. Under any other scenario he
loses a substantial amount of money, so in order to make money it is in
his interests to make Everton successful.
Arguments among the fans keep coming back to Kenwright's Evertonian credentials
but his credibility is being eroded by his record at the helm, both officially
— albeit briefly — as Chairman and unofficially as
Deputy under Sir Philip Carter. As laudable an act as mortgaging his last
assets in order to buy the club he loves was, it has left him completely
unable to invest in Everton further. That, together with his his insistence
on retaining True Blue's hegemony and a catalogue of ill-advised interjections
on the playing side (Campbell's contract, the returns of Ferguson and
Jeffers) leave him in a shaky position that is only made worse by the
bluster and evasive silence of the past week or so.
So, again given our deeply-held suspicions of anyone not blessed with
Blue blood, while choosing sides and backing one personality over the
other would seem to be risky, the current situation doesn't leave us with
much choice. Of paramount importance appears to be the immediate abolition
of True Blue Holdings and Gregg is leading the campaign to bring that
about. And it's hard to see what malicious intentions he can have with
that ambition — after all, he can hardly take his money and run
because his shareholding would be worth so little at current valuations.
Until Kenwright is able to put forth a counter-proposal, Gregg continues
to hold the upper hand, particularly while he is willing to stand up and
admit the mistakes of the past, recommend a complete structural overhaul
of the club and provide a blueprint for a company that can be solvent
in two years' time. Most importantly, however, his proposals would put
money in the pocket of the manager before it is too late � something that
Kenwright's stonewalling is making less and less likely.
Lyndon Lloyd
Reader Responses:
Lyndon is totally correct in his appraisal of the situation: the issue
is not about Bill Kenwright's or Paul Gregg's Everton credentials,in the
best of all possible worlds our rich Directors would be Everton fans first
and foremost, but in the real world we want Directors with sound business
acumen and the ability to invest sufficient investment to run a Premiership
outfit that can compete,first and foremost with the likes of Charlton,
Birmingham and Southampton. Then to provide an infra-structure that will
allow us to move on in terms of the team and the ground.
Our "brand" is superb and with sound financial management we
can move forward. — Rick Tarleton
In a general sense I agree with your points. But I can't bring myself
to trust Paul Gregg, who strikes me as a sinister individual. If his aims
now are what's best for Everton, why has he waited until this point to
act? If Everton's primary problem is investment, why does he not buy the
many outstanding shares himself, or produce some financial stability by
eliminating the overdraft with a loan from his own poclet, repayable at
a lower rate of interest? This would show good intentions. I believe he
originally got into this thinking he could profit from a successful King's
Dock project and now he is either maneuvering to get his money out of
True Blue or setting up some self-interested deal more arcane than I can
imagine. But I don't trust him.
Peter Fearon
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