The current chairman has been at the helm of the club since Kenwright?s consortium secured 68% of Everton from Peter Johnson in 1999 for £20m. At first a saviour in regards to ousting Johnson but failed stadium move plans to King?s Dock and Kirkby as well as having no personal fortune to plunge into the club, has turned fans against Kenwright.
No fan should doubt Kenwright?s loyalty and commitment to being a true blue and he pulled off a masterstroke by choosing David Moyes to become his long-term manager of the club. Kenwright has also never taken money out of the club which is confirmed in the accounts and has brokered the sales of Lescott and Rooney for a combined £50m.
Kenwright?s downturn has therefore been his lack of business acumen. There has been countless other business mistakes as well as the stadium plans; the spending of the never-materialised NTL money, the Fortress Sports Fund disaster, the Trevor Birch appointment as CEO for only six weeks as the Board refused Birch?s recommendations, Alex Nyarko?s five year contract despite only gaining a four-year work permit.
More recent mistakes have been the twice-delayed Walton Lane development, the loophole in Dan Gosling?s contract and the short-sightedness of signing players to increased contracts and therefore reducing the transfer budget to zero.
In summary, Kenwright has done a lot of good for Everton by taking over from Peter Johnson and certainly has the club?s best interests at heart. However, his consistently bad management decisions combined with his lack of personal wealth to pump into Everton has made him the current hate figure around Goodison.
Former chairman, Peter Johnson soon became a hate figure at Goodison after taking over in 1994. The self-confessed Liverpool fan was also chairman of Tranmere Rovers. During his five-years as Chairman, Johnson authorised the record-breaking signature of rookie goalkeeper, Steve Simonsen, dubiously from Tranmere. Johnson was then forced to relinquish his Chairmanship by the FA due to breaking the game?s laws of owning more than one football club.
Despite being Chairman at the start of the Premier League, Johnson seemed to start wracking up Everton?s debt by sealing big-money deals under the management of Walker, Royle and Smith.
Peter Johnson was surely more hated by Everton fans than what Kenwright is now, due to being not only a red, but in charge of Everton?s demise on and off the field in what was English football?s affluent period.
The ?Moyesiah? saved Everton from relegation when he took over as manager in 2002. Touted as one of the best young managers in the game at the time, he has subsequently been named as 2003, 2005 and 2009 League Managers Association Manager of the Year.
Moyes has also led Everton into the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, an FA Cup Final, a League Cup semi-final, consistently high league placings and trips into the Europa League. All this has also been accomplished on a small transfer budget, especially compared to other clubs of Everton?s stature and below!
Therefore, why is Moyes on this shortlist of wrong-doer?s? Well dig a bit deeper, and despite these achievements, you will find that Moyes has been in charge for coming up to ten years without actually delivering anything.
The standard of football under Moyes has been dour at the majority of times, a succession of (some expensive) strikers have been ruined by his tactics (Bent, Beattie, Johnson, Yakubu, Beckford) and a complete lack of purchasing out-and-out wingers (van der Meyde the only winger in nine years). Creativity, pace and a lack of goals are clearly missing from Moyes? predictable game plans and he admits he is in charge of all the transfers at Goodison. His lack of tactical knowledge has often been clearly exposed in the few trips abroad and seems to rely on motivation rather than tactics.
Moyes? teams have excelled when they have a backs against the wall mentality but failed to produce when they should. He also has a strict regime and clashed with several first-team players like van der Meyde, Rooney, Lescott, Yakubu, Beckford and Yobo who all barely wore the blue shirt again. This regime may be fine in an ideal world, but unfortunately, Everton don?t play in an ideal world and we need to make the most out of what we have got.
It is almost Moyes? saving grace that he hasn?t had a large pot of money for signings and it is a common belief that Moyes will automatically do well if this was reversed. However, this is not necessarily the case. Club record signings under Moyes (Beattie, Johnson and Yakubu) all have to be marked in the disappointment column in his transfer dealings.
Current record signing, Fellaini has potential but still has rough edges that need a good manager to sort them out. Moyes? better signings have been of the smaller value variety like Cahill, Arteta and Pienaar. Perhaps Moyes does his homework more when he has to, compared to splashing (Lescott) money on the likes of Bilyaletdinov and Heitinga.
Moyes? insistence on playing safe in a match can be incredibly frustrating with sometimes seven defenders on the pitch or even no strikers. Ian Holloway built a goalscoring team at Blackpool by having lots of strikers, Martinez built a creative team at Wigan by having lots of attacking midfielders. Gus Poyet is currently building a fast team with flamboyant wingers at Brighton.
All of these examples were achieved at smaller clubs than Everton. A club reflects the manager?s style and unfortunately that looks bad on Everton as Moyes is clearly defence minded and Evertonains have had to endure almost ten years of what has been in the majority, hoofball, dour football with a pure lack of tactics and ultimately, lack of achievement.
Moyes is a good manager, but for a team that is scrapping and fighting relegation. He done his job in keeping Everton up in 2002 and cleared a lot of dead wood from a succession of previous managers. However, it looks like he has reached his peak and his team failed. Moyes? incompetence is covered up by the incompetence at board room level which looks likely to prevent Moyes from building another Everton team. Surely only an incompetent Board accept mediocrity from a manager.
Despite the popularity and resounding success that the Premier League has been since it?s introduction in 1992, only a small number of football clubs have benefited. Sky has branded the league and a few ?big? clubs names to every corner of the globe. Money has since flocked into the Premier League as everyone wants a part in it from sponsors to owners to players.
However, money has gone to money. The ?branded? clubs by Sky are the only ones that have benefitted. Manchester United are by far and away the leading success due to their management having the intelligence to capitalise on their fanbase by increasing Old Trafford massively more than any other stadium in this country. Arsenal are trying to follow, but built the Emirates about ten years too late to keep up with Man Utd, whilst Liverpool were simply content and didn?t have the foresight to expand and improve.
Billionaire investors have since come to this country to enjoy their latest ?plaything? with the likes of Chelsea and Man City benefitting but they surely need a more sustainable growth than the owner simply throwing money at the Club.
The Premier League has changed football from a sport to a business. There are billions of pounds at stake and several clubs have risked everything for a shot at success. Peter Johnson may have led Everton down the same financial path as Portsmouth or Leeds had the FA not forced him out of his Chairman?s seat, but is a small bit of success followed by massive failure any better or worse than stagnating into a nothing club like Bolton or Sunderland?
Obviously Sky are out to simply make as much money as possible and marketing the Premier League is easier with Man Utd than Wigan, but should the money be more evenly spread? It is only in the last few years that the Premier League have started to filter down their money to the lower leagues and relegated clubs. Perhaps instead of a sliding scale prize money depending on final league positions, every club should get the same money and the prize simply being the champions or being able to compete in Europe.
Sky has created a financial monster that only benefits a handful of clubs, not including Everton. Whether that is Sky?s fault or the fault of Everton?s management structure is unclear. Maybe it?s just jealousy that Everton aren?t in the ?Sky group?.
For Sky and the Premier League, read UEFA and the Champions League. The European Cup used to be a great tournament as you had to be the league champions to enter the European Cup and therefore took two years to become champions of Europe. It?s rather ironic now that you don?t need to be champions to win the Champions League. UEFA has also created it?s own financial monster, but on an even larger scale than the Premier League. It?s no coincidence that in England there was a massive gap between the ?top 4? sides and the others.
This was due to their being four places available for the Champions League. The top 4 not only benefitted hugely financially but also again in brand name terms. All the top players in the world wanted to play in the Champions League and these clubs that competed regularly could afford inflated wages and big squads.
It is almost simple marketing that has allowed the top of the Premier League and the Champions League to be such a huge success. However, with this success, there has to be clubs that suffer and Everton are in that bracket. Kids at schools already wear Man Utd or Real Madrid shirts compared to their local teams and I?m sure Everton have been affected too.
It?s a struggle for any fan to support their chosen team when they have no hope of winning. This is why glory hunting fans have become the norm. This doesn?t just affect shirt sales, it affects match day attendances, other merchandise but most of all, it affects the mentality of the fan. Every fan wants to see their team win trophies but it is so much harder now for clubs without money than what is was twenty years ago. Money rules football now, and every club either has it or doesn?t.
I find it?s been really disheartening recently to watch Man Utd ?build? their team. Other clubs bring through their talented youngsters only to see them taken away at the first sight of potential by one of these ?super? clubs. Fulham, Blackburn and Atletico Madrid all got reasonably well reimbursed for their players, but what hope does it give these clubs? They can?t build their own teams, their can?t bring youth players through and these ?super? clubs still have tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds in the bank anyway by consistently playing in the Champions League.
The only reason Jack Rodwell is still at Everton is that he had a poor season last year. After such a promising season before, the vultures from Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal and even Real Madrid were rumoured to be interested. However, Rodwell had a poor year and they all signed the latest star player like Phil Jones or Juan Mata instead of Rodwell.
The only thing Everton can do is to build a new young team, but then the likes of Fellaini, Coleman or Barkley will surely all be poached if they have a good season as Everton cash in to survive.
Therefore, I throw open the vote for who is responsible for Everton?s demise as a football club. Do you think it is down to the poor running of the club off the pitch by chairman, Bill Kenwright or even his predecessor, Peter Johnson? How about poor tactics and football by David Moyes who has been in charge for over nine years? If it is not Everton?s faults, then someone who runs the game like Sky for the inception of the Premier League or for the money men at UEFA for the Champions League?
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