Alan Nixon claims Everton pair could buy the new stadium

Interesting news that Andy Bell and George Downing want to buy the stadium if 777 Partners takeover.

Paul,

Where did you pick up that information from?

Rumours abound that Bell and Downing are going to buy the new Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

We will become renters, or squatters, if this goes through.

777 Partners, if approved, will still own the club.

This could actually be a good idea. It would take the financial strain of the new stadium off us. Plus the money owed to MSP would be written off.

Paul, hopefully MSP will come back in once 777 Partners are rejected and take over. Mike Gaynes swears they are legit and serious.

Andy Bell… could he 'Erasure' all our problems?

Sorry, I'll get my coat! 😜

Hopefully Colin. It just needs sorting. The club can't go forward without new owners.

Interesting but a bit vague on the detail concerning their access to at least £700m.

And hopefully any rental deal struck has a more benign structure than either Kitbag or the training ground.

As I understand it, Bell and Downing are part of the MSP group who have so far pumped in £158M into Everton, and it was rumoured some months back that 777 Partners asked MSP to join them in getting ownership of the club and MSP refused.

Also, I believe that part of the agreement of loaning the club money was that, if new owners hadn't been in place by mid-April then MSP would take control of Moshiri's shares in the club.

Now it seems highly unlikely that new owners will be in place by mid-April to pay back MSP the £158M, but the likelihood is MSP will extend their timescale to Moshiri rather than take ownership of his shares.

Also Rights & Media Funding have pumped in £200M in loans and when some months back it was suggested that MSP would make a bid for the club, Rights & Media Funding blocked that move.

Everton not owning the stadium? Bill Kenwright must be turning in his grave.

Murky, murky, murky, and two owners for the price of one.🤮

Kings Dock, Destination Kirkby, Moshiri…..

Kenwright's legacy will linger on for generations to come, Tony.

It's already been lingering for the entirety of this nearly quarter gone century, Colin, so I'm just praying I'm wrong once again, because I always said his era, would end in tears.

Peter, 2, think it's on ToffeeWeb somewhere but can't be sure.

I think it's already ended in tears, Tony, when you look at the state we are in. The question is whether we can rise out of it or is the worst yet to come?

I can see Moshiri selling his shares for £1 as someone else posted a few weeks ago, he gets a share of the stadium and MSP combine with Bell – that all hangs together and seems much the better option unless your belief concerning other investors bears fruit.

Who's in the driving seat,? 777 Partners, Moshiri, MSP or another unnamed consortium?

I think it's anyone's guess, but I'm not sure anyone will want to be pulling any strokes on Usmanov.

As with any rumours if this latest suggestion has any substance the devil is going to be in the detail. It all, at this stage at least, sounds a bit like the Gregg - Kings Dock idea that Billy Liar rejected. Has anyone else got that feeling?

I wonder if there is any substance to this rumour?

One part of me says it might break the log jam as the delay is unbearable and another part of me says we are nearly there whatever the outcome so why add a complication in at this late stage. I just don't know.

So if MSP end up owning the stadium and the club become renters...who makes the money from day to day events...concerts...restaurants...if its not Everton football Club...then stay at Goodison.

The only way this works is if we lease the stadium for a substantial number of years for a token amount ie £1,000,000 per year. Get to keep all match-day income. But MSP get all other income and have to pay for upkeep. Similar to West Ham.

End up renting it? We may as well had Kings Dock 20 years ago...

But what do Everton actually take out of Goodison, besides their match day revenue, Philip B?

Saw the headline and thought they meant selling Onana and Branthwaite.

Tony after 140plus years...we own the stadium. Would be like selling your house, blowing the lot in the bookies and then renting it back nothing to show for all the pain. I bet ya now the majority at West ham would rather be back at Upton Park.

Philip (22),

I am not sure the extra 26,000 fans they accommodate in the London Stadium would agree with that. Their new stadium is an abomination but, contrary to what many outsiders expected, they are able to fill it.

I'm not arguing Philip, I'm just pointing out what I believe to be a fact, because other than our home games, I'm not sure what other money, Goodison creates, for Everton football club?

I still think it will be terrible if we don't end up owning Bramley Moore, but the last owner already has previous for this type of deal, when you consider we no longer own our own training ground.

The club has been owned by charlatans, with ulterior motives for years, so let us just hope and pray, that our next owners are different, and they also have a clue, about how to run a successful and competitive football club.🤞

After 26 years of the “world's greatest Evertonian” ruining the club, the thought of these two “super fans” owning the stadium and 777 owning the club fills me with horror.

The new stadium has the potential to generate a lot of money, seven days a week (a very good reason why I suspect our neighbours may be less than enthusiastic about it).

I have rather been hoping such money would help, over time, to create a decent football team. If the stadium belongs to a third party, such hopes would seem forlorn. Unless that third party is extremely benign.

I don't care who owns the club or stadium. If it means our football club remains and has a future. That's all I'm bothered about.

Edward 6,

Andy Bell could be our Blue Savannah, so always show him a little respect and L'Amour or he'll love to hate you.

I'll get me hat and me coat.😀

Is this just a mechanism to get Moshiri paid off and the club out of its current leaderless limbo?

Can we assume that their allegiance to the club would lead to lower than normal rental terms? Is that permitted under the current or proposed regulations?

How would that stop 777 Partners from draining the club dry if they turn out to be greedy get-rich-quick capitalists?

Brian #9,

There is no indication that Bell and Downing are "part" of the MSP group, but it's logical to assume they have a working relationship with MSP. Bell and Downing were rumored to be MSP's choices for Board seats when the vastly more respected American group was negotiating to buy the club, and all provided stadium loans at around the same time.

I find this rumor comforting amid the concerns about 777's viability and ethics. If all these unsupported assumptions are correct, it puts the stadium at least in safe hands, and it puts MSP, Bell and Downing in pole position to buy the club if 777 Partners either flops or fails.

In the US, things like guns and cars sometimes change hands through "straw buyers" who make purchases on behalf of hidden buyers. All this mishegaas (check your Yiddish dictionary) is starting to make me wonder whether anyone has ever pulled off a straw buy of a football club.

The writing has only been on the wall since the very early stages of Moshiri's reign, Mike.

It's now becoming very intriguing, like - in a “who done it” serial kind of way, but with those murky April clouds swirling around above the new stadium. I just wish they would reach a conclusion because our rudderless football club is badly suffering with all the indecision right now.

Edward @ 6, thanks for clearing that up, I suspected he was a 'ringer' for someone familiar ! :-)

"The pair are owed millions from 777 Partners after ploughing in cash."

Bullshit, 777 owe them nothing 'cos they're not the owners of the Club. Moshiri owes them millions.

I always thought the Peter Kenyon-led consortium was the best fit from what I had read at the time. My memory is hazy but why did they disappear and 777 become the only game in town?

Downing and Bell seem sensible business men and successful, too. That'll never work.

Craig #34, that Yank bid foundered way back in July 2022, just a couple of weeks after it was publicized in the papers. The rumored offer was £500 million for the club and £500 million more to finish the stadium (the actual price tag has gone much higher).

No member of the group -- not Kenyon, nor the mysterious real estate magnate Kaminski, nor gold executive John Thornton -- ever commented publicly about either the bid or its failure. We will never know what went wrong.

Fuck off, Bell and Downing. Buy the lot or fuck-all. If you're such big Evertonians, then you would be buying the club.

This (I bet you) has been their plan all along. I don't care if they are big Evertonians – we, the not-so-rich fans want decent owners and we want to own our fucking stadium.

It's likely that these two – Everton credentials aside – will do what's best for their business interest.

Same as "Tesco Terry" and Destination Kirkby.

Same as the Greatest Ever Evertonian.

There's no end to this shit show.

Phillip, it is going to upset us all, but we can't stay at Goodison and should have left years ago.

When you see the new stadium come into view, it is quite breathtaking. Not even finished yet, but she's looking special.

The West Ham stadium may have been originally designed for the 2012 Olympics but has helped redevelop the Stratford area.

The new Everton stadium will do the same for the north docks area. And that Bramley Moore pub is a gold mine that those owners have sat on for years. Long may it retain its character and be a meeting place for Evertonians.

I get emotional every time I think about leaving Goodison, but we have to.

Bell and Downing are super fans for their advantage. Just another media angle of many. Hard to know who are serious contenders, that is why the Premier League is setting deadline dates.

This debate has been going on for decades.

If we were going to stay at Goodison, we would have to have followed Liverpool's model and bought up the streets around the stadium. Done a Tottenham and swivelled the stadium 180 degrees from its existing footprint.

But that ship sailed as did the failed Kings Dock opportunity.

Onto the new Everton Stadium. She is going to be spectacular.

Danny #41,

From what I recall, the club would only have had to purchase a garage and a school, which was closing down, at one end of the ground. Not do what the Red Shite did and buy up houses and blight them to force out others who wouldn't sell up.

I think it was Tom Hughes who described an option to rotate the pitch as part of a redevelopment?

I don't know if it's urban myth and only went off my Granddad's wife telling me as we walked to the butcher's on Walton Breck Road.

When they were waiting to develop the then Kemlyn Road stand into what initially became the Centenary, they had bought up just about every house on the street.

Only 3 remained. One in the middle propped up by two derelict ones either side.

The story was that 3 old ladies refused to move. I think it set back their plans years.

My auntie (as I referred to her) was insistent they must be Evertonians!! But she was a raging Kopite and had a bright red chair in the corner that she called her Shankly chair, which I refused to sit on!!

Danny@ 43; No myth mate, I remember it well, they held out for a few years.

Eric @ 42; There were more than a a few plans...some even feasible...to rotate, flip the pitch, etc. But sadly, no 'Will' to do it.

When there maybe was the 'will', there was no money and or opportunity. When there might've been opportunity and money (aka grants), there was no 'will'

Deep down I think it was perceived, maybe correctly, that the big money was in a New Build and sell on, but 'events' and incompetence put paid to that.

At the last meeting with the Everton Shareholders Association with the Club it emerged that part of the Bramley Dock Development would be sold.It could be this is why 777 Partner's were able to get a extension on the loanu that was due to MSP Sports Capital who are represented by Blythe Capital who have two charges registered against the Everton Stadium Development Company.

Whilst I welcome MSP Sports Capital having some type of Ownership within Everton I do find it absurd if I am correct that 777 Partner's are able to negotiate such a deal whilst trying to raise the money, which they appear to have problems doing, to satisfy the Premier League requirements by funds being used to require the other Premier League requirements.It may be that a letter of guarantee of funds from a Financial Institution may all 777 Partner's require So new ownership of the Stadium is a possibly.

This all is in keeping with the way Everton Finances are currently run ; Directors determining their own serverence paypots and the absurd Director renumeration in the 22!23 Accounts.At the last meeting with the Everton Shareholders Association with the Club it emerged that part of the Bramley Dock Development would be sold.It could be this is why 777 Partner's were able to get a extension on the loanu that was due to MSP Sports Capital who are represented by Blythe Capital who have two charges registered against the Everton Stadium Development Company.

Whilst I welcome MSP Sports Capital having some type of Ownership within Everton I do find it absurd if I am correct that 777 Partner's are able to negotiate such a deal whilst trying to raise the money, which they appear to have problems doing, to satisfy the Premier League requirements by funds being used to require the other Premier League requirements.It may be that a letter of guarantee of funds from a Financial Institution may all 777 Partner's require So new ownership of the Stadium is a possibly.

This all is in keeping with the way Everton Finances are currently run ; Directors determining their own serverence paypots and the absurd Director renumeration in the 22!23 Accounts.

Downing made his money in a shadier way than Usmanov. No, thank you.

Paul Kosoff, Andy Bell,

You can sometimes be annoying. Don't let people love to hate you. Am I right, who needs love like that?

I will get my codpiece and go.

Dean [46]....

That may be so, but one important difference between them, is that, while Usmanov's best friend has invaded Ukraine, Downing's best friend hasn't invaded Scotland!

Eric #42,

I think both Trevor Skempton and another young Architect (who's name escapes me, apologies to him if he's reading this) came up with schemes to rotate the pitch through 90°.

Trevor was exploring that option, but I'm quite certain he favoured maintaining the existing orientation, and redeveloping the existing stands with less impact on the surrounding streets.

I still find it amazing that some fans still state the gospel according to Kenwright/Wyness/Elstone (circa 2003-2008) supporting the notion that we HAD to move and Goodison was not able to be redeveloped. This has been disproven repeatedly, before, during and since Destination Kirkby met its inevitable end. It is an entirely false assertion based on no evidence whatsoever.

The minimum land take for Everton to achieve BMD's 52,888 capacity was a few end terraced houses from Muriel and Diana streets near to Bullens Rd, and a small incursion into the School grounds, which has been earmarked for renovation for decades. Of course a slightly bigger incursion, including along Gwladys St could've yielded a much greater capacity, if required in the future. With even 65-70k achievable, which almost certainly cannot be done at BMD given its site contraints.

The current financial crisis (near ruination and threatened with administration) only reaffirming the credibility and possible desirability of that option. Moving people from their homes? At a tiny fraction of the cost of BMD the owners could've been offered penthouse apartments in the Albert dock and holiday villas in Florida and we still would not have got close to the position we are in now.

As regards hosting other events at BMD. There is no sliding pitch nor closing roof. It is not a multi-purpose arena. So those opportunities will be as limited as Anfield's or indeed a redeveloped GP, which is nowhere near the flexibility of the Kings Dock scheme, which some people still seem to be conflating with the BMD project.