Joe Anderson casts doubt on LCC funding for new stadium

If there is a problem, with either funding or planning or whatever, simply keep us in the loop.

No news at all simply makes people suspicious and ever so slightly cynical that we have hit a snag.

Mayor in The Echo says LCC may not fund it. Club looking at other options. Outside of Usmanov buying it, I cannot imagine a lower-priced financing deal.

Hmm... by not accepting the loan means more heel-dragging while new revenue streams are sought. It's all turning very Kings Dockish for my liking... but hey — what do I know? There is no way our club would pull another fast one on us fans, is there??

Who cares how many seasons tickets are sold, Goodison Park is an embarrassing shithole that should've been condemned years ago. Give us some proper stadium news or just tell us it's fallen through.

There is no way on this Earth, after all this time, there can be nothing to report on Bramley-Moore Dock... It is impossible and just doesn't make any sense. Mayor Joe is telling us something the club aren't, I fear. I think even Micheal K must be starting to get a little twitchy now???

Of course, it has a lot wrong with it, obstructed views and too low down views all over the ground. But if you don't understand the magic of the Old Lady, there is something seriously wrong with you.

You keep some of the good news back for quieter weeks. When you would probably come on anyway and rubbish it.

Fuck all?

Put a couple of trophies in the cabinet and that may bring in the investors.

I've heard some Evertonians describe our Chairman as 'charming and quaint'.

A long-term Goodison development plan is what is needed. You only have to look at Croke Park to see what can be done. The priority now is a sensible board that knows what it's doing.

Shithole – I know you didn't really mean that – you were making a point. Goodison could be turned into the most unique and brilliant stadium anywhere, no problem. We need to take note of what Wenger said about Arsenal moving from Highbury. Liverpool and Man Utd won't move and that says it all.

It depends if you want to dwell in the past, comfortable with what you've been getting for as long as you can remember, and tread water and know exactly what to expect (like some of those I had many an argument with over keeping Allardyce) or move with the times, become a professionally run, economically sound, hopefully successful, football club.

Change is necessary, though scary for some.

Roll on Bramley-Moore Dock!

Red Flag one: Mayor says LCC may fund whole amount as Everton cannot seem to raise £30 million for their upfront share

Red Flag two: Marcel says we need to sell to buy.

Red Flag three: Anderson says Everton may not accept LCC loan and are looking at other options.

Red Flag four: Anderson says he knows Everton are very open to new investment.

There are no other options. A municipality get preferential rates on loans versus businesses because their credit rating is higher. Why? Because if their income is inadequate they can boost it by raising taxes. A company cannot just raise sales in the same way. Therefore, aside from a national government there is no entity that would have a higher credit rating, and lower borrowing cost than a municipal government.

Obviously, Moshiri has decided he has had enough of this little venture and he is battening down the hatches. He doesn't want to encumber the club with a new debt (LCC loan) while trying to market it the club to some other mug.

Supposedly Moshiri was to acquire shares from Woods, Kenwright etc over time. How would "new investment" help us if he plans to have the major stakeholding? Does he think some minority shareholder will ride into town and build a stadium for us in exchange for a 15% holding? That is ludicrous. None of this make sense unless Moshiri is cashing in on us.

It is over folks. It is all over.

I don't buy it. As he – Moshiri – has just pissed away £100 million on players now worth nothing, why wouldn't he double down on an actual tangible investment at a third of the cost?

Why is Usmanov's sponsorship the length it is?

Why wouldn't Moshiri wait for the rising tide of the next tv deal to cash out? You're saying this on the day Amazon have injected another revenue stream into the Premier League.

I think you're over-reacting... unless Moshiri is in deep shit, a la Alan Stanford...

If he bought us to quickly flip us... would he have paid off Allardyce, Walsh et al? I don't buy it.

You make me feel happy! I thought I was the sorriest, most miserable and depressed person in the whole world, and totally indifferent to anything remotely positive having a chance to happen! Hats off to you!!! :)

I posit that if dung hits the rotary with Moshiri's personal pride being at the stake, there will be alternatives like Usmanov waiting in the wings...

Football clubs are a great tax shelter if used effectively. The only way I see Moshiri wanting out is if he is stony – "do not pass go", "bones of his arse" – broke.

If Moshiri was an unknown outsider with too much spare money, then I'd be willing to entertain that idea. But remember that Usmanov and Moshiri tried for years to gain some say with Arsenal, to no avail.

Moshiri sold his Arsenal shares to Usmanov and bought into Everton, while Usmanov refused to give up his hopes of having a say at Arsenal.

English football clubs competing in the Premier League seem to be an outlet for spending excess money, with prestige being more important for non-American owners, than for the actual, traditional "investors" we might expect to get in from across the pond...

Goodison looked and felt great when I went as a kid in the 70s, but that was 40 years ago... Now, in 2018, it's shabby and wooden, with pillars and facilities stuck in the 60s. Z-Cars being played sums it all up. It's got Boys Pen Bill written all over it.

I can't wait for a new "modern" stadium. We may be waiting for a while longer though.

I'll donate it to either you or Tony, whichever posts in a positive manner first.

I can't see anything about the new Bramley Moore Dock stadium (on the banks of the Royal Blue Mersey) being called off... far from it. Everton appear to be working on the finance while others are probably working on the engineering design, and everything needed to support the planning application.

Joe is pissed off because the politics may see his pet funding scheme kicked to the kerb. That's a pity — especially for the City. But not an opportunity for you to start crowing again.

In fact even now, it has far too many redeeming features and good qualities to be able to comfortably avoid this descriptor and furthermore all of the negative issues and poor views are eminently resolvable via a well-planned programme of redevelopment.

Indeed, if the powers-that-be had accepted this over 25 yrs ago when the ramifications of the Taylor report were first taking effect (or at any point since), then we would already be enjoying the benefits of a far bigger and more modern stadium, at a fraction of the (apparent) costs of going elsewhere.

Conjecture Colin.

Why should the Club pay lip service and spoon feed us like children. Yes, I know the Club has a history of letting us down but until we hear different nothing has changed (apart from the regime that is now running the Club).

Now is not the time to panic with unsubstantiated rhetoric.

There is plenty of room to do it if only our short-sighted board could see it.

This is a highly complicated site to work with and with so many complicated work streams each will have dependencies and interdependcies that impact other streams that need careful management ongoing within the programme in order to keep the plan on track to achieve the major milestones set this year.

Bottom line ALL projects/programmes have risks, issues, challenges throughout. It’s right to look at alternative funding options in any case but we need to ensure the best and most sensible deal for Everton football club. We don’t know what the council has offered, it might be terrible deal. If we do get a better funding deal which with Moshiri is possible as to who he is the contacts and reputation he has no doubt there will be offers which could be used as a bargaining chip with the council. Council deal is probably the least risk but let’s see what happens, no doubt in the next couple of months, we’ll know what’s happening with funding and designs should start to be released.

I honestly believe (hope) Usmanov will join Moshiri and provide an interest free loan for the stadium build like Moshiri did with the £100m interest loan to pay EFC debts etc when he came on board.

He sell his £700m shares in Arsenal, uses a % if that to funds Everton’s stadium and will instantly start to see a direct return through namely my rights, revenue etc we could probably pay the loan off a lot quicker with that route rather than 25 or so years with the council forking out an additional £142m or whatever the council will make from us over that period time.

Who knows I’m positive about this stadium.

All I see in the story is that Joe is worrying Moshiri is considering, and might find, other offers better for him and the Club. Good stuff.

As far as "Its all gone quiet", how is that a surprise? Who expects Moshiri to announce what entities he's considering offers from? Hell, he's even knocked off his silly chit-chat with Jim White. All to the good, for me.

What we have is the Mayor hoping to do business with Everton. Dan Meis' outfit is still getting paid for stadium design. Anderson himself stating Moshiri is considering other offers. And most importantly, Moshiri HAS signed the long-term lease on Bramley-Moore.

Short of an announcement like Chelsea's recently, everything points towards the new stadium happening. Mosh won't supply us with details?

Well, boo hoo hoo. So what?

I don’t want a video as my lasting memory of that game is the return of Ferguson off the bench. Thereafter, Royle ditched the exciting line-up with Speed, Andrei and Barmby and returned to long ball stuff to accommodate Dunc.

This mate of mine is so negative towards everything Everton, even though he goes to every game, home and away.

He has been against the new stadium since day one. Fuck, he even thought we should have kept Allardyce and give him a 3-year contract!

Also I think it was about 5 years ago, in a match day forum, he remarked about someone (maybe Pienaar) doing a good pass.

So if there is uncertainty over the deal, what would any good businessman do? Explore other avenues, that's what. This is what I think Everton are doing. Big Joe Anderson is desperate for the club and council to do the deal as it would be his legacy. He helps the club and the council get a £7m windfall each year for however long. So, it appears to me that Joe is doing what he can to keep that alive.

What I do not accept is that the stadium deal is in collapse. The club are busying behind the scenes. It appears the costs are rising dramatically, but this has now been factored in by the club.

The appointment of Keith Harris to oversee the stadium development surely shows just how serious we are. His role is all about that project and nothing else. Why create the role if we're just going to wave the white flag? I think the costs will go higher and higher, there will be more and more unforeseen difficulties (linked to draining the dock and building on it), but that it will get done. Moshiri has everything riding on this. His whole tenure at Everton is about building the stadium. He knows that if he builds it and the club remains at the current level of 7th-10th, he will sell for a profit (providing TV revenue maintains or betters current levels).

If the white flag is raised on the stadium, then I think we're screwed. Moshiri is likely to pull out faster than an errant husband caught in the act by his wife, and leave us in a familiar Randy Lerner situation as he tries to claw as much money back as he can and the financial walls close in on us.

For me, the very future of the club relies on the stadium deal getting done and we must give him our full backing on this.

Link

The story in The Echo obviously tries to make something of what is almost a throwaway comment from Joe, who is his usual calm intelligent self, trying to share what he can while letting on that he has the contacts and knows the people at play here.

His words about Denise Barrett-Baxendale are encouraging and I would take that over all the speculation from others who see her only from afar and have no idea what she can do for the club.

Looks like the format of the podcast works quite well, with Greg and Tony letting Joe do 98% of the talking.

All Together Now – iTunes, Google Play, etc. A new Blues podcast for a new era. There's three up so far in just the last 10 days. The others focus understandably on Marcel Brands and Marco Silva.

I thought the Greg O'Keefe chaired Echo podcast was pretty good. It had a good mix of personalities and reflected different views from Blues of different ages. Dave Prentice came into the podcast as the host after Greg left for the BBC. I found the quality really dropped as Dave was too eager to give his opinion and not to host.

Also, his opinion, which I previously respected seemed to be very insular, and he displays a complete lack of knowledge of European football and a lot of what he says about footballers from outside of Merseyside is just completely wrong. Surely, a man of his position (Echo Head of Sports) would actually watch European football or do some basic research before offering up his expert opinion.

I shall give the new Greg O'Keefe podcast a listen. Thanks for the link Michael.

Now there's a comment I never expected to read here.

So can somebody explain Anderson's reference to the Liberal Democrats? Are they the same folks in England that they are in the US? And how are they "playing politics" with the project?

Thanks.

In Liverpool, we are very much a socialist city. It is said that you could pin a red (labour) rose on a monkey and we'd elect it. There was a furor at the election before last when Luciana Berger stood as MP for Liverpool Wavertree. She was London-born and viewed as Labour taking Liverpool for granted by putting a someone they wanted to be elected into a very safe seat. Of course, the Liberal Democrats saw it as a chance to draw votes away from Labour, knowing the electorate wasn't happy but would never vote Conservative. When push came to shove, the electorate voted for Labour as usual in one of the safest seats in the country. Like voting for the President, we tend to vote for the Prime Minister we want, or the party we want, rather than the representative (MP) we want.

When it comes to council-level, Liverpool has a very strained relationship with Labour. Read all about the fascinating Derek Hatton and his “militant” labour council that took on Maggie Thatcher. It's hard to properly summarise that.

We've seen the Lib Dems take control of the council from Labour in recent years. Starting with throwing out Labour in 1998, yes, during Tony Blair's (Labour) honeymoon period. Since then, Labour have slowly increased their position to take control of a council they used to take for granted, but that only happened in 2010. Since 2014, Joe Anderson's lot have had an overwhelming majority, 80 plus councillors vs a maximum of 7 Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems see the stadium as a way to win votes. Stir up passions in kopites and turn them away from Labour based on football. Labour lost 4 seats in the council election this spring.

I hope that helps.

In terms of local politics, the Lib Dems hold only a few council seats in Liverpool and have come out questioning the possible council role in financing BMD. Here's something from the Lib Dems:

Link

Additionally, the chances of this happening (for me) largely depend on Joe being in office. If he isn't before the deal is sealed, it'll be no surprise to me if it's pulled.

I'm pretty sure you could find it on YouTube.

It is loosely based on Derek Hatton and his 'militant' labour council that took on Maggie Thatcher's ruling Tory party that Steve Ferns references.

The excellent Robert Lindsey plays the Hatton role and Michael Palin an innocent primary school headmaster who somehow gets caught up in the political crossfire.

The title GBH is a play on words. GB is globally recognised as 'Great Britain', but GBH in the English courts refers to 'Grevious Bodily Harm' - a charge made against somehow who physically assaults another.

In the context of the series, it reflects how dirty and ugly politics in GB were in the 1990s.

And if that whets your appetite, look up 'Boys From The Black Stuff' by the same writer, a son of the city, Alan Bleasdale.

Again, primarily reflecting the difficulties the city of Liverpool passed through thanks to Tory policies of the time. Stuff to pull at the heartstrings, make you angry and laugh out loud.

Both HUGELY recommended viewing.

Having said the above, if I still lived in the best city in the world (I left so many years ago, I don't even want to count, but to say that a few years ago, I returned to visit my parents' grave and couldn't find it!) – I would also vote for Joe Anderson – a true blue and to hell with the politics.

Answer... Not a lot!

'Harry's Game'.

Clannad alone have a lot to thank that series for!

What was that training course called?

,"This is a highly complicated site to work with and with so many complicated work streams each will have dependencies and interdependcies that impact other streams that need careful management ongoing within the programme in order to keep the plan on track to achieve the major milestones set this year."

What was that training course called?

,,,1,02:36:33,,82.2.11.73,ok,19747,06/10/2018 02:36:33,Overdrive,reader,, 925011,36787,toffeeweb,10/06/2018,Bob Parrington,bparrington@comtecipe.com,Great to see some sense coming in to the management!!,Great to see some sense coming in to the management!!,,,1,03:46:19,,101.166.154.119,ok,2681,06/10/2018 03:46:19,bobpar,reader,, 925012,36780,toffeeweb,10/06/2018,Christopher Nicholls,chris.n@mac.com,"Don, you literally typed the words I was thinking. The human fallibility of the referee is an intrinsic part of the poetry of the game. Maybe I am an old romantic, but living in the USA has exposed me to much more of the American hobbies than I care for. They ceased to be sports many years ago and are now just over-produced theatrics to drape advertising around.

I have also witnessed the use of VAR at a live game or two this year at the LA Galaxy and – to be none too poetic – it fucking sucked the life out of the game.

Cue... 'The video's a wanker...'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duhykhvV36g

I've only known him for about 42 years and he's never changed.😖😖😖

I thought someone had swallowed a badly-written PRINCE2 manual!

As an overseas Evertonian looking in from the outside I have to say he impressed me once again. He seems to have a great vision for the future of the City of Liverpool and a very entrepreneurial approach.

I got the distinct impression from his comments in the podcast that his concern is that he doesn't want the city to miss out on the additional £145M of revenue that the funding deal will deliver.

He made mention of the huge amounts of investment capital that are available from international sources like China. A waterfront development in one of England's major cities surely must have come to the attention of those looking for investment "opportunities". Perhaps there is some significant interest from another potential investor?

As he pointed out, there is a huge benefit to the City of Liverpool if the stadium is built – regardless of who provides the funding.

I remain very optimistic about this.

A one-off TV play, wasn't it. Simply called 'The Black Stuff', from memory...?

“When I spoke with the owner, one of the first things he said was about the new stadium," Silva said."

Seriously I think it's politics for the moment with the council loan. Don't forget, Everton have to find the other half of the funding as well. I enjoyed the podcast.

With respect to the studium issue, if in fact this is looking likely to happen (which it very well might), I'm still at a loss to understand why the club aren't generating some excitement about it – even if just to draw potential investors for naming rights, surrounding businesses to further the need for transportation upgrades, enhancing the profile of the club etc.

Not wanting CGIs for a 4th stadium failure in the electro-ether, I can understand... but not controlling any of the narrative (other than false hope a la 'weeks rather than months' and Meis's past courting of fans) is a failure on the club's behalf.

Hoping but not breath-holding for some change now that Harris has been named as the responsible party on this front. Not 'cause I trust the man but rather now there's a direct line to which fans can point if ongoing silence indicates another failed attempt.

To bring it back to our club: I would suggest that the Council supporting Everton and Everton offering a lot in return would be just huge for my second favourite city. Investment and the raising of profile works. It has bad points but it is a start.

I worked as an addiction counsellor in Glasgow in 1990. Being City of Culture didn't cut the problems but it did more good than not. Any investment in a big project that will bring a stadium for Everton and an income for years for the city should be grabbed, supported and cherished.