Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

Follow the Money

By Nick   Armitage  ::  02/09/2011   11 Comments (»Last) I have never been a fan of Bill Kenwright; he may well be an Everton fan, but I have never seen evidence of him possessing the right credentials, in terms of monetary wealth or commercial acumen, to run my football club. This is evidenced by the unholy financial mess that we currently find ourselves in.

In the Blue Union ?interview?, questions were put to Kenwright and he admitted an almost criminal level of incompetence. As a Company Director, he is legally obliged to equip himself with the skills and knowledge to enable him to run a company and act in the best interests of all that company?s shareholders. His lack of grasp of what was going on at Goodison was quite frankly appalling. The only constant of his tenure as Chairman is his unrelenting desire to retain his majority shareholding. He has clung on irrespective of whether this was in the best interests of the club ? the Kings Dock fiasco typifies this.

This may go some way to explain the situation at Everton. People in the know were convinced that the club were near to administration last season. I have heard local businesses no longer operate credit accounts with Everton and now demand cash transactions for payment.

Accusations have been levelled at the Everton board and Directors of financial impropriety. I do not know whether these accusations have any basis in fact, but personally I smell a rat. Private Eye have been all over Kenwright for years, but not once have their accusations been countered by Blue Bill. Changes to the Articles of Association of the company limit the both frequency and remit of AGMs and EGMs, so pertinent questions can never be asked by rank and file Evertonians.

Over the last four years, the club have made a significant profit on player transfers. This is part of a business plan which was forced upon a reluctant Moyes. But credit where credit is due, we have pulled the pants down of several clubs when they have coveted our players. The hopeless and hapless Jermaine Beckford to Leicester in the recent fire sale is a prime example.

However, I am seriously worried when a small provincial club a Division below Everton possesses more financial clout than a team which regularly finishes at the business end of the world?s richest league. Something is seriously wrong.

Apparently the club budgets for a 17th-place finish and going out of both cups at the first hurdle. Who else would have been sacrificed if that had been the case? Rodwell? Barkley? Coleman?

Robert Elstone was asked recently, Where all the money has gone? His answer was Finch Farm. Finch Farm is a state-of-the-art 55-acre training facility, and financial black hole. The club did own this site but chose to sell and rent back from the Essex based Hudson Capital Properties. The club does retain an option to buy, but since the current business plan of the Everton Football Club Company Ltd is one of asset-stripping and utilization, I doubt this will ever happen. We did own a training facility, Bellefield, but recently sold it for £8M. I may be wrong but, his salary aside, I don?t recall Moyes seeing any of this particular windfall.

So... where has all the money gone?

Who knows?

Perhaps it is now time that the black hole in the accounts was subjected an appropriate level of independent scrutiny. The more people dig, the more they discover a plethora of reverse mortgages, charges and offshore loans with unregulated providers in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands. But we are told this is how business works now ? you don?t hold assets, you borrow as much as possible and leverage upwards.

Even though football in England today is perceived to be big business, there aren?t many commercial enterprises that have the ashes of its customers buried on its property. This is why football, and Everton, needs to be different. The current business model employed by the more than adequately remunerated Elstone is clearly not fit for purpose. Surely now Kenwright?s time and the time of his bumbling bullshit board, is up.

I applaud the Blue Union for shining a light on what is going on at Goodison. Whether Kenwright likes it not, we have finally reached a tipping point.

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