Just another retort to the loveable reds over on Rawk. There seems to be some assumption (or so there perspective goes) that I’m making out Moshiri is much wealthier than John Henry and was going to buy us a ground. I can cover the second point very easily that I’ve never said this and would think it would be a ludicrous waste of liquidity for him to do so.
As for the first point, on paper at least it’s reasonable to compare the two. In Forbes Henry is ranked at 1 billion and Moshiri at 2.5 billion recently (an increase of close to 150% in 18 months) but baseline figures as comparable. To reduce down the impact of Moshiri to simple figures though is to rather miss the wider perspective about the impact of his investment.
The raw figures do show they are not “about the same” at all by the way, they show Moshiri has well over double the wealth and hundreds of millions more. However I will let that slip. What is more significant is that it is always a challenge to estimate the values of the super rich. They are astute at hiding money. The company who leads the way in charting values Forbes is an American based company, who have always said they have poor intelligence on Russia (for obvious reasons) and therefore it’s hard to make an accurate judgement. They have subsequently said that they have therefore “cautiously estimated” Moshiri’s wealth based on parts of his profile they are aware of. Their knowledge of the US market is understandably much stronger. The accurate figure would be that a cautious estimate of part of Moshiri’s empire is well over double what Henry is said to be worth.
Moving slightly away from this, what is significant about Moshiri is how he is overhauling the method of how Everton operate off the pitch. We are already seeing Everton trebling or quadrupling existent relationships. In some cases it’s literally immeasurable the impact he is having as we are getting sponsorship for areas that had no revenue previously. We are starting from a low base, well behind Liverpool, but such progression is likely to be significant for Everton.
What some Everton fans believe is that Usmanov is lurking behind the scenes. This is not some wild conspiracy theory. Usmanov regularly sits with Moshiri at games. He has sponsored Everton to a significantly higher value than we had previously. They have both also said “we always do business together” shortly after the sponsorship deal.
Alongside that you also have a tradition and history of such an approach across Post Soviet Russia. It’s not uncommon for a wealthy owner to be a front guy for the serious powerhouse who prefers to stay anonymous (for varied reasons). None of this means it’s certain to be happening, but there is credible evidence to fuel the theories. Suffice to say any involvement from Usmanov would be a game changer over the next 10 years.
I actually agree with some of the sentiment that Moshiri is also trying to make Everton self sufficient, but disagree it’s a bad thing. Throwing money at a project and making a project viable in it’s own right are not mutually exclusive. Even now, if Roman left Chelsea they would find it very difficult (although they are better suerved than 5 years ago). It’s likely City would be bust quite quickly without their financial support. I think Moshiri is trying to get Everton to the top, will (and has) invested significant amounts of his own funds as a shortcutting exercise but also knows we need to overhaul our method of generating revenue for it to be longer term.
As regards the stadium, no he hasn’t paid for it. Yes this might make him a fraud. However no owner has ever paid for a stadium. Your own owners are making you pay for your stand and creaming profit off you for the interest on the loan they’ve given you. If you accept the premise Moshiri is a fraud for not paying, you would also have to say every owner in the history of football in every country is also a fraud.
A more realistic look at the stadium would say that Moshiri is adept at prioritizing his own liquidity and that of the club. He openly said at Arsenal he rejected the short term repayments and preferred long term repayable debt solution. Debt isn’t an issue if it’s manageable, sustainable and doesn’t impact in other areas. The stadium deal he has done for us, over 40 years paying back anywhere between 14-18 million pounds per year over a 40 year period should mean we avoid the fate of Arsenal who are still to fully recover from the fiscal reductions that were withdrawn in the aftermath of their stadium. I imagine naming rights alone will come close to meeting our figure to be paid off.
I have no issue with a serious debate about ownership or a critical look at Moshiri. However straw manning people’s positions, or making out anyone is suggesting Moshiri is going to give us the entirety of his 2.5 billion pound fortune is conducting a debate in poor taste. Through a mixture of his expertise, cash, liquidity and connections Moshiri is moving Everton forward off the pitch. I do think the ridiculous comments across the spectrum of LFC supporting media outlets is indicative of a fear that they can see this is happening.
