The Everton Board Thread (Inc. Bill Kenwright / Blue Union)

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

You don't seem to grasp my point. The fact that it will only ever be 4% of our turnover is exactly what would put off a buyer who may reasonably think he could get it to 20-30% with his own methods and team

That's 4% of total turnover that goes to the bottom line don't forget, as if you're seriously suggesting we could command a merchandising deal that equates to (at current rates) £16-24M, then you're living on anther planet. Our total kit & merchandising sales total turnover probably falls short of that number.

We haven't agreed anything to do with clauses as we're not in a position to. Kitbag would be absolute fools if they allowed us to wriggle off the hook

Oh sorry, I must have dreamt you saying this then;

I agree there may be get out clauses or penalties to pay to exit the deal

....................

You don't think any buyer will be looking to make money??? What would you suggest may be on thier agenda, if not money?

You'd have to have rocks in your head to buy EFC with the serious intention of making a return. Look at the facts, we'd don't make a profit now, we need a new stadium, we need cash investment in the playing squad & our asking price is a reported £150M. You'd need to have a different agenda to want to take us on, like the Abu Dhabi's at City, Abramovich at Chelsea or even the Coates family at Stoke. None of whom bought their football clubs with the idea of an annual return at the top of their agenda. Get it?

They will be looking to add value to thier business by improving it's processes and profitability, they won't be able to because thats tied up, as is all corporate and matchday servicing, something Arsenal make £2m a game from.

haha Arsenal make £2M from their sausage rolls & corporate do they? Brilliant.

They make their matchday revenue from having a 60K state of the art £450M stadium based in one of the wealthiest areas of the entire Nation lad. Oh & btw we used to make a loss on our in house catering as well.

 

[mpatton]

You don't seem to grasp my point. The fact that it will only ever be 4% of our turnover is exactly what would put off a buyer who may reasonably think he could get it to 20-30% with his own methods and team. We haven't agreed anything to do with clauses as we're not in a position to. Kitbag would be absolute fools if they allowed us to wriggle off the hook.

You don't think any buyer will be looking to make money??? What would you suggest may be on thier agenda, if not money?

They will be looking to add value to thier business by improving it's processes and profitability, they won't be able to because thats tied up, as is all corporate and matchday servicing, something Arsenal make £2m a game from.

Are you for real?

Spot on with your last point. Short term it was a good deal. Shame we didn't sign a short term deal though.

I think your being a touch ambitious with your expectations of merchandise turnover. It was interesting to read that Manchester City were able to increase their merchandise deal in 2010 by increasing it a whopping 60% to a total of £7.9m which is on the back end of spending hundreds of millions on players etc in order to create the global brand. This £7.9m still represents only 6.3%

I would love to have the stadium setup at Arsenal also, but have you been to the emirates? A number of my friends, colleagues are mid tier corporate season tickets which is basically a nicely padded seat with a free beer at half time and they pay £3k a season for this. Arsenal's annual matchday turnover is twice that of Liverpool and even more than Barcelona so maybe we should be aiming a little lower.

 

[Slavan]

On the NTL crap that put a number of clubs in the **** so I can't see how it's Bill's fault.

4

dell boy, your the biggest kenwright denier on here

can you give us details of which other clubs?

 

[Dell Boy]

4

dell boy, your the biggest kenwright denier on here

can you give us details of which other clubs?

I'm not a denier at all. I've said I think Kenwright has made some mistakes. But I don't think he's a crook as some are seemingly suggesting. I don't think the club is in anyway as bad a state as some want to make out either.

I think there should be more transparency but Blue Union etc could do a lot better by saying that x% of other clubs detail other operating costs (or whatever) so why don't you? It's got to be facted based and not just some crap about the boogey man Philip Green in his Monaco villa.

But ultimately I don't think its smart to look to drive out a board in the absence of any other back-up. We could find ourselves up **** creek as they say. We're in the middle of a massive recession. There is no evidence of any serious bidders waiting in the wings.

Don't get me wrong, if say for arguments sake, Terry Leahy announced he was leading a bid for the club with serious money backers - then I'd look to Kenwright to put up a fireproof alternative or get out of town. It wouldnt even have to be a Blue at all. I'd accept a sheikh or an american sports fund or whatever if they made the right noises and could back it up.

Thing is the whole Blue Union wave of minority protests would be a perfect ally to any prospective bidder that couldnt strike a deal easily with Kenwright direct. The fact there isn't to me speaks volumes.

 

[Dell Boy]

By the way what I mean about the state of the club is as a business overall. I like to look at things simply.

11 years ago we had a largely crap squad, were regularly near the bottom of a league with a very good TV deal

Today we've got a decent squad, we're regularly much nearer the top and have been most recent years. The league has just banked a spectacular TV deal and the Premier League is now stamped as a global brand.

Never mind almost irrelevant crap such as freehold/leasehold of Finch Farm, what contract we have to sell pies at half time or whether we can or cannot build a new megastore on the park end - the business overall is much better than it was previously. Some of the amateur accountants and private detectives on here should sometimes remember that we're a football business and on the field it's a hell of a lot better than it was 11 years ago.

 

[davek]

By the way what I mean about the state of the club is as a business overall. I like to look at things simply.

11 years ago we had a largely crap squad, were regularly near the bottom of a league with a very good TV deal

Today we've got a decent squad, we're regularly much nearer the top and have been most recent years. The league has just banked a spectacular TV deal and the Premier League is now stamped as a global brand.

Never mind almost irrelevant crap such as freehold/leasehold of Finch Farm, what contract we have to sell pies at half time or whether we can or cannot build a new megastore on the park end - the business overall is much better than it was previously. Some of the amateur accountants and private detectives on here should sometimes remember that we're a football business and on the field it's a hell of a lot better than it was 11 years ago.

The club is £40 odd million in debt, has no other assets outside of players and Goodison, and the stadium has been allowed to deteriorate for the 13 years kenwright has been at the top. By the CEOs own admission they are scraping the barrel to find new ways to fund the manager...and yet you think it's all irrelevant and that the club is miles better off with these clowns in charge.

 

[Dell Boy]

The club is £40 odd million in debt, has no other assets outside of players and Goodison, and the stadium has been allowed to deteriorate for the 13 years kenwright has been at the top. By the CEOs own admission they are scraping the barrel to find new ways to fund the manager...and yet you think it's all irrelevant and that the club is miles better off with these clowns in charge.

Do you know the debt level 11 years ago? Not being snide, I genuinrely don't know. Clearly its the difference between then and now that is important.

I'm not sure I said it was irrelevant but yes I feel the focus has to be on the pitch. I don't see Bellfield/Finch Farm as being all that important. Without going into that £40m debt we may well be at the bottom end fighting relegation. With more and more smaller clubs going for broke at a tilt at the Premiership it's not unreasonable to think we could go down. So I'd rather we are where we are now than say really struggling but with no debt.

Of course I'd love the club to be in a better position but where's that cash going to come from? I agree that the board could do a better job on the commercial side but I say that from the outside. and anyway it's not be area of expertise I'm just speakling as a fan. I do beleive they're not setting out to do a **** job though.

Our golden ticket is to be playing decent football in the champs league and bag a new owner or investor on the back of it.

 

[caught]

Attempting to conclude that Kenwright et al are a success story because we have a better squad now than in 1999 is something of a straw man, unfortunately. In spite of our ownership, Moyes has built a series of good squads. That these squads have been rapidly dismantled and rebuilt with monies from asset sales is the fairly basic and compelling evidence that, as a business, Everton FC is poorly run at board level but lucky enough to have some decent senior management.

I find it a odd that anyone wouldn't be at least a little curious as to where the 'OOC' go...

 

[Essex Blue]

Our golden ticket is to be playing decent football in the champs league and bag a new owner or investor on the back of it.

It might allow Moyes to invest further in the squad, but I doubt it would make much difference in attracting a new owner to Everton.

An extra £30million per season (if you manage to qualify each season) isn’t going to make much of a difference when Kenwright and Co are asking for around £130million (Keith Harris’ words) for a football club that needs to spend an additional £130 on a brand new stadium.

The new TV deal will see those finishing in the top half of the Premier League receive a similar cash injection to the clubs who have been qualifying for the Champions League over the last 10 years (an increase of circa 20-30million per year), but I still don’t think that’s going to be enough to attract a new owner given Kenwright’s asking price and our stadium situation.

Moyes ability to spend small sums of money very wisely has resulted in a drastic improvement in our playing squad, and I consider our official debt to be relatively small and completely manageable by Premier League standards. So thanks to Moyes, and Kenwright’s decision to keep Moyes, I think we are in a far healthier scenario than 10 years ago.

However things can change very quickly in football, one look at Aston Villa post Martin O’neil can show that, and it would be no surprise to see Everton suffer a similar scenario once Moyes leaves. And if you take Moyes and the players out of the equation, not a lot has changed since Peter Johnson was in charge.

 

[Ihaters]

I honestly think if we got CL a couple of times we wouldn't need to bin the current owners from a business perspective, only from a distrust perspective.
Its not like they don't spend everything the club makes on Moyes, or paying back what they loaned from the banks to back Moyes previously. I think an extra 20/30mil a season and 20+ would head into the transfer kitty, and with Moyes in charge that could well be enough to keep us up there and improving.
Its a pipe dream though. I don't expect us to get 4th by a long shot.

 

[davek]

I honestly think if we got CL a couple of times we wouldn't need to bin the current owners from a business perspective, only from a distrust perspective.
Its not like they don't spend everything the club makes on Moyes, or paying back what they loaned from the banks to back Moyes previously. I think an extra 20/30mil a season and 20+ would head into the transfer kitty, and with Moyes in charge that could well be enough to keep us up there and improving.
Its a pipe dream though. I don't expect us to get 4th by a long shot.

1/ If we got CL football: the same clowns are in charge now as when we last got 4th. They failed to bring decent players in that would help us through the play off game and to carry on our push for top 4 the following seasons. If we got CL places a couple of times it'd be a miracle with these ****ing idiots in charge.

2/ They dont spend everything the club makes on Moyes. And they can only claim the figures they do claim because they shove £20M to £25M annually into a black hole that no one's allowed to touch or know what it's gone toward paying.

 

[Ihaters]

1/ If we got CL football: the same clowns are in charge now as when we last got 4th. They failed to bring decent players in that would help us through the play off game and to carry on our push for top 4 the following seasons. If we got CL places a couple of times it'd be a miracle with these ****ing idiots in charge.

2/ They dont spend everything the club makes on Moyes. And they can only claim the figures they do claim because they shove £20M to £25M annually into a black hole that no one's allowed to touch or know what it's gone toward paying.

Fairly sure we spend money every year on players that the club can ill afford. Of late.. Mirrallas, Jelavic, Pienaar etc.
Fairly sure that would continue with more income as well.

 

[sheeds]

1/ If we got CL football: the same clowns are in charge now as when we last got 4th. They failed to bring decent players in that would help us through the play off game and to carry on our push for top 4 the following seasons. If we got CL places a couple of times it'd be a miracle with these ****ing idiots in charge.

2/ They dont spend everything the club makes on Moyes. And they can only claim the figures they do claim because they shove £20M to £25M annually into a black hole that no one's allowed to touch or know what it's gone toward paying.

I'm a long way from pro-board but as I was told the money to bring in Parker & Bellamy ( i think it was ) was there it was moyes who made a mess of both deals.

 

[davek]

I'm a long way from pro-board but as I was told the money to bring in Parker & Bellamy ( i think it was ) was there it was moyes who made a mess of both deals.

Looking back at the signings we made that summer, it looks like Moyes was intent on spreading whatever money he did have over a few decent players in the £3-5m range. Maybe he preferred that than blowing what he had on those two. And the Kroldrup stuff stunk to high heaven. The fact we were bounced out early from the CL and his leaving early always seemed to be connected for me. The club were unprepared for that CL opportunity and looking ahead I dont think there'd be any appetite for them to give another opportunity a real shot.

 

[sheeds]

Apologies if its a bit off topic but The Bellamy meeting was a car crash & I posted on kipper at the time exactly what Bellamy later said had happened . It was a done deal and for reasons best known to himself moyes just seemed to go off message . The Parker one I know a bit less about but as I recall he'd met a London club (spurs ?) which were considered the main rivals and when he met us he'd said he didn't fancy it I think moyes took his eye off the ball and Newcastle nipped in .

I think both of those could have made a real difference but there was money there . Randomly over the years I've seen kenwright get hammered for not backing deals when it'd been moyes who hadn't pushed through a deal when money was available . I also know the first time somebody known to me had ever known the manager not have the finial word was when the city Bellamy Loan was done but a 'facilitation few' was believed approved then pulled and I don't believe it was the manager that did it.