Season › 2011-12 › News

Blue Union case restated

Dave Kelly interviewed at Sabotage Times

Ahead of this weekend's second protest march, one of the Blue Union leaders, Dave Kelly, talks to Steven Tudor at the Sabotage Times, where their case for continued protest against stagnation of the club is presented. Dave Kelly expresses his exasperation with the local media for failing to pursue the issues raised because, he believes do, they not want to jeopardise their close links with the club.

The fight continues because Everton are still stagnating and under the stewardship of a chairman who is generally considered to be well-meaning but hopelessly out of his depth the club remain in a seemingly irreversible financial mire that prevents progress. As the Swiss Ramble website so succinctly put it recently, theirs is a business model that is bust.

It is, on the surface at least, a baffling state of affairs. Everton have been ever-presents in the Premier League — that's eighteen years of windfalls and riches — and they have never been ones to spend beyond their means... Yet, as harsh as this sounds, they have become paupers in the golden palace, with an estimated debt of £45m which has required them to sell off their training ground and outsource profitable revenue streams such as merchandise and catering.

Hindered by a ground in desperate need of updating (their lack of corporate facilities alone limits them greatly in relation to their Prem peers), and with commercial operations that bring in a third of Tottenham's revenue, the solution solely lies in investment and change.

The Blue Union have found themselves ignored time and again when it comes to getting their efforts recognized in the local media. Dave Kelly believes it is because the Liverpool newspapers do not want to jeopardise the close links they have built up with the club.

"At our first meeting at Zeligs in Liverpool there was 700 people there, including Howard Kendall and the F.A Cup on display. Sky covered it amongst others but the local media did not. The Liverpool Echo were in attendance but evidently were not there in a professional capacity as no coverage appeared anywhere. For our second meeting — even though it was an international weekend — the local media informed us it was not sufficiently newsworthy. During a subsequent demonstration there was a call from the floor for a boycott of local media. There is a feeling of being let down by them."

Quotes or other material sourced from Sabotage Times

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