By the end of the conversation, my anger and incredulity at how Everton was being run was balanced by a touch of sympathy for Moshiri. He cuts a tragic Premier League figure. To use a well-known Liverpool phrase, he has ‘had his kecks pulled down’ by the football industry. His intentions when buying Everton were noble, but the evidence suggests he has been used as a cash cow by agents and players.
To end up with a wage bill that is 92 percent of the club’s turnover – and having nothing to show for it – proves he has been taken to the cleaners.
That’s the sort of thing that happens in a sports business with relegation and promotion. All the money goes to the players.
Of course, Spud managed to get this entirely the wrong way around but then that’s normal, right?
How do you make a small fortune?
Start with a large fortune and buy a football club.
Now do the financial chicanery of Manchester Shitty.
Tim
That was an excellent blog of yours on football that you linked to. Well done indeed.
However “soccer”? is that a sop for our ignorant septic friends?
Everton have had a problem with Goodison for what seems like 30-odd years now, with all sorts of various plans being put forward over the years. I seem to remember a rumour going round at one point that the City Council were not overly happy about issuing the safety cert for the ground, but definitely did not want to effectively shut the club down.
Anyway, Moshiri has actually got the thing going, must be nearly complete by now, so next season, maybe?
But, the plan appears to have been build the squad up (spent about half a billion quid over five years), enter comfortable mid-table mediocrity whilst the stadium build eats cash, with player sales funding it, via straightforward transfer fee inflation.
Reasonable enough idea, slight technical hitch – they completely cocked up the player recruitment, so badly that any manager couldn’t perm a consistently effective 11 from the 26 available. Oops.
I think the guy responsible left a few months back. Not exactly Dan Ashworth. Does appear that the internal structures ain’t great. See also Chelsea and Manchester United. Not really up on what’s going on with 777, but they apparently already have a slug of debt, which has been keeping the club afloat.
@BraveFart
“Soccer” is English. It’s an abbreviation of Association, as in Association Football, to distinguish it from the other football, i.e. rugger. I remember the terms “football” and “soccer” being used interchangeably when I was a boy, long before the Americans adopted it for a very similar reason, i.e. to differentiate it from their other form of football.
Yes Frank, I know soccer is English. Commonly I think used now in GB by people who regard football as an inferior form of sport played by people in trade, not gentlemen. Like at my fee-paying (grammar) school where we played rugby because the cvnts in charge thought football was for plebs.
What was William Webb Ellis playing? Football, just with his hands.
This strange obsession with the word “soccer” may indicate that serious menl elf ishoos are just around the corner. See a trick cyclist, quick.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but last time I looked, “football” meant rugby in the Scottish borders. And that’s not a class thing; it’s a nobody-round-here-plays-the-other-kind thing.
It is passing odd that grid-iron, gaelic rules & rugby use football for games where the ball is mostly carried.
Hand egg.
@BiS
In the NFL, they don’t even touch down a touch down.
Even the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, decided to get involved, questioning the integrity of the independent Premier League commissions making a judgement on the club’s overspending.
Fucking hell.
How did Mr Moshiri prove good enough at business to become rich and bad enough at business to reduce Everton to near ruin?
It’s odd: nobody suggests he’s a crook, nobody suggests he’s malevolent, he just seems to be astonishingly bad at running a football club. So bad, indeed, that even the average supporter might be no worse. Though obviously a committee of supporters would be worse.
Bloke in Pictland
He’s the sidekick of one of Putin ‘s friends called Usmanov; he has no money if his own.
Anyway, it’s the same old shite: blame the players for ripping off the international businessmen owners. It’s undiluted Murphyshite.
“Want a piece of advice? Don’t buy a football club” – Alan Sugar, having bought Tottenham Hotspur.
BiP,
Everton have been rubbish for decades. One of those clubs that is crying out for relegation but never quite achieves it.
I was told the reason schools preferred Rugby (Union)to soccer was that fewer playing fields were needed. 30 boys on the pitch instead of 22.