Gary Neville shares ‘enormous’ cost of relegation to Everton
Gary Neville says relegation could cost Everton £120m before they sell any players this summer, and says the reality of that is ‘awful’ for the club.
The Toffees moved out of the relegation zone thanks to a huge 2-1 win over Leicester on Sunday [May 8], putting them one point above Burnley and Leeds with a game in hand to play.
However they’re not out of the clear yet and Neville, speaking on his podcast, shared that he had been told of the cost of relegation to clubs dropping into the Championship and said he could ‘only imagine’ the losses at Everton if they went down.
“We’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks but we’ve got a good top four race, a brilliant title race and a compelling, awful.. I always think they’re awful, relegation battles,” he said.
“I think that the desperation of going down, the financial loss is too great. That drop is enormous and it causes real problems. But one of them is going to suffer it.
“I can only imagine the losses that Everton are going to have to suffer if they go down. And Leeds will not be far, well they will be far but there will be a lot of losses at Leeds as well. It’s going to be awful.
“I heard a couple of weeks ago that the difference between going down and staying up was £120m. Of cash that they would have to put in, if they didn’t sell any players.
“You think to yourself, wow, it’s not pocket change that. That can’t be right, that sort of cliff edge is so deep.”
Terrifying
The club are not in the greatest financial situation as it is, and that’s with Premier League football backing them up so if they were to go down the ramifications are terrifying.
The club lost a lot of financial backing when Alisher Usmanov was sanctioned by the UK government, and while Farhad Moshiri continues to prop the club up it would be difficult to do that in the second tier.
With a new stadium in the works too, and reports that the players in the squad don’t have relegation clauses in their contracts their could be financial ruin in the works if the club went down.
Thankfully they hold safety in their own hands and have the chance to move clear of the pack with a win over Watford in midweek, which would see them go four points clear with three games to go.
It’s not as easy as it sounds though, and the club must be aware of the shocking numbers that Neville shared. Survival is the top priority, anything else is simply a disaster.
In other Everton news, Jordan Pickford has no relegation clause, could be priced out of summer transfer from Everton