Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

My letter to the Editor of the Echo

As an avid Evertonian of many, many years, I find it totally disgusting regards the handling of the Transfer window whereby all fellow supporters of our ?Once great club? have been totally let down by our so called Board of Directors.

Every Evertonian knew that we would sell players on the last day of the Transfer window to either enable us to continue trading as a business or to pacify the bank to a certain level of happiness that we are classed as an asset which I believe we have had to do. By taking Arteta?s £75k / week off the wage bill (figures from the Echo), Yakubu approx. £50k / week and Beckford £20k / week equates to a saving / year of over £7.5m and then the transfer value of £16m for the 3 above mentioned players. This gives us a saving of over £23m / year based against losses / year according to Kenwright of £5m year on year.

Does this mean that we will have money to spend in January or has the bank taken every single penny to pay off the debt? We need you, as our local paper to ask these questions of our totally inept Board of Directors and our so called ?True Blue? Chairman. Why will the Echo not ask these questions on our behalf? What are you scared of? What have you got to lose? You cannot alienate the Blue half of this City anymore as I do not know another Blue who will read your paper as we do not gain anything by it. We read Phil Neville week in, week out telling us how good the mood in the camp is ? do we as Evertonians really care about this media propaganda from our so called Captain Marvel?? Let me, let you in on a secret, we don?t give two hoots as we are not stupid and we know the real issue is to deflect blame from Mr Kenwright.

Why will you not run an article on the front of ?OUR? local paper entitled as below?? ?How much do you want for your beloved club Bill ? that is all we want to know??

I would not condone the actions of Blue Union but after reading their statement regards to the issuing of the minutes of their meeting with the above mentioned Chairman, I firmly believe they have acted in the best interests of Everton FC. I believe that they are in no way in the wrong in what they have done. They made some excellent points, the main one for me being that if they put across points that were totally incorrect during the meeting and un-factual, why have the club not issued a response to discredit the group and issue a factual representation of the minutes? Can you ask Mr Elstone or Mr Ross to issue a response as to what lies the group have released to the public?? I suppose again the answer to this from your paper will be a resounding ?NO????

The figures for 2010 could not have been anymore disturbing from a business point of view. The loss incorporated the sale of Bellefield and Pienaar to Spurs and the figures still showed a huge loss. The Turnover according to Kenwright is £85m and the revenue we bring in is £80m. This gives us the net losses of £5m including the above figures of approx. £12.5m yet the figures released according to Mr Elstone in your paper were ?Very healthy?. Why did you not question these figures as for any person with any intelligence they boarded on ?Administration is beckoning?.

Last year we had, Yobo, Yakabu, Turner, Vaughan, Duffy (at certain times) and Joao Silva to name but a few, all out on loan at a time when we had the smallest squad in the Premiership and these players could have been used at some stage. Everybody knew that they had been loaned out to save on a wage bill ? why again has this question not been asked of the club?? Are we hovering on the brink of becoming insolvent?? Basic business sense prevails in the fact that you have to cut your cloth accordingly to run a successful business. Other common statements such as, ?Speculate to accumulate? also spring to mind and based on the fact that Stoke City have now decided to use this methodology, jumps out that Everton are now perceived as a small club by nearly every other club in the Premiership. Why have we as fans and you as our local paper allowed this to happen??

Why does the Liverpool Echo not know what roll Philip Green has in the running of our club when it is plainly evident that if the Kirkby move had happened, Mr Green would have made many millions of pounds from his Commercial ventures in the fashion industry. Please do not tell us that he is not involved in the running of the club when we have been told many times through various media outlets that he is involved in some shape or form. We only want to know what his roll is??? It has been common knowledge on Internet forums that we had to pay £12m to the bank by the end of August and according to factual information, we took another £12m mortgage out a few weeks ago based against Sky TV money which we will receive in 2012 costing another £1.5m in interest. It is quite obvious that we would sell players on Transfer deadline day to cover this figure but maybe we knew other clubs had us by the short and curlies so the loan enabled us a bit of breathing space and the potential to get a better deal for the ?Bank?, oops, I mean ?Club?

The Kirkby move, loved or loathed by Evertonian?s could have made the club and enabled Mr Kenwright to ensure that he found a buyer for his ?Beloved Everton? and enabled as I perceive, that Mr Green would have ploughed many millions into the club through his retail profits. It could on the other hand been the biggest white elephant and smokescreen to enable ?Blue Bill? to get a cheap ground, split the Blue ranks down the middle and make his money and disappear. The fact is, yet again, because of poor Management, we will never know as the Board made a complete cock-up of the ground move?? Oh yes, that reminds me, where is the £50m contribution that we had to make to the ground move ? answers on a postcard???

This leads us onto more misdemeanours on behalf of our Directors. Why has the Park End development been a total farce? ?Cannot move the PC?s during the season?, ?Conflict of interest between the parties? and ?Legal wrangling? are some of the many witty remarks from the jolly band of men leading our once precious club, who are now leading us into the jaws of Administration. Why can our Head of Communications not communicate with the fans? When he has to face tough times, as per the disclosure of the 2010 financials, what does he resort to? ?I know, I will ring Talksport, they normally go easy on me?, is the answer from Mr Ross. Not good enough Mr Ross, stand up and be counted like a real men.

We would also like an answer to the ?Search for Ongoing investment regards the sale of the club?. What does this actually mean? Does it mean Bill wants somebody to give him £100m for players ? I would like someone to buy me a new house, but hey guys, welcome to the real world, it isn?t happening, or does it mean he wants to sell??? This is not a hard question to answer but it seems a very hard one for our Board to communicate with the fans? Why can we not find a buyer for our club? QPR have some of the richest people on the planet in charge of their club, have probably the worst stadium in the Premiership and yet invested millions in the last week of the Transfer window, yet we are led to believe from all sections of the media it is down to us having an outdated stadium. Our outdated stadium holds 40,000 with an average attendance of 36,000, with 4,000 obstructed seats. Do you think if we had the squad Man City have today, people would happily pay to sit behind a post to watch a team challenging for honours, an overwhelming yes is the answer!!

Would an Arabian Sheik who has spent nearly £1bn since he arrived on sponsorship and players really baulk at the prospect of having to pay £200m on a stadium. Yet again the answer is no, so why are Man City more attractive than Everton??? These are simple questions you, as our only media outlet can ask if you really have the courage to do it.

What does Keith Harris actually do to bring ?Investment?, sorry ?Sell the club to Prospective buyers??? On the way back from holiday a few weeks ago in my car, there was yet another discussion on Talksport as to why nobody wants to buy Everton FC and what is the involvement of Keith Harris, to which my wife asked, ?Isn?t that the fella with Orville the duck?. My overwhelming feeling was that the other Keith Harris would probably do a better job of selling Everton FC than this clown currently has?.

I believe every single Evertonian who read the Blue Union article on the prospective sale of the Club to the guy in Manchester (yes the one who lived in a flat) could not believe the levels of incompetence in the story. What type of business gets to due diligence without checking the credentials of the perspective buyer. One half of the deal owned ICI and the other owned a Hedge fund, this was the guy who lived in the flat and didn?t even own a hedge ? unbelievable facts!!! If this is the level of people Keith Harris is bringing to the table, Let the other Keith and Orville had a go, surely that can find someone who has a house and a hedge??

I have to write this letter as frustration is now at boiling point from all sections of Everton supporters and I firmly believe that we cannot carry on with an unsustainable business model which will inevitably lead to the destruction of our beloved club. We, as supporters have to do something now to get this board removed before it really is too late.

We need help from you, the Liverpool Echo, to answer questions. Why can you not see what it happening to Everton FC. We as fans need answers to the following questions:

? What are the club doing to reduce the debt, besides selling players?
? How tightly are Barclays squeezing the clubs finances ? is Administration close??
? Why are we currently looking at 6 potential sites in the City when we cannot afford to bring players in?
? Why are we so unattractive to buyers?
? Are the club trying to get Moyes to walk to save on one of the biggest wages at the club?
? What is Philip Green?s involvement at Everton FC?

AND THE FINAL POINT WE NEED ANSWERING IS
? How much money does Bill Kenwright want for Everton Football Club???

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