Everton fan Riddick Bowe says he will buy the club and change its name
Riddick Bowe, the former champion boxer and celebrity Toffees fan, has claimed he is going to buy Everton and change the name of the club.
A takeover is back on the agenda currently after the Peter Kenyon-fronted consortium that came close during the summer failed, to be replaced by a solo bid from one of the members, Maciek Kaminski.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday (5 October) that Jeffrey Soros was leading a competing approach, with whom there had been “preliminary talks”, but it appears that “Big Daddy” Bowe has had enough of all that.
Posting on Twitter on Thursday afternoon (6 October) the former heavyweight champion said: “Yo [expletive] it ima buy Everton an change the name to St. Domingo’s FC. Bowe COYB”.
The Brooklyn-born 55-year-old has long been a vocal supporter of the Toffees, particularly on his Twitter account, sometimes getting himself in trouble along the way [Liverpool Echo, 27 February 2014].
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While surely Bowe’s declaration was tongue in cheek there will no doubt be plenty of Toffees fans who would love to see it happen.
Considering how unpopular Farhad Moshiri has become in recent years, especially since the appointment of Rafa Benitez, it might be the kind of move that would be just the opposite.
Whether the heavyweight has a spare £400million to splash out with is another matter though, and Gary Neville is sure to be upset about the prospect of another American owner either way.
Boxing and Goodison Park often go hand in hand, not least via another high profile fighter and fan, Tony Bellew who won the WBC cruiserweight title at the ground in 2016 with a knock-out win over Ilunga Makabu.
And Rocky himself Sylvester Stallone, another Toffees fan, once bemoaned his own failure to buy the club back when he could afford it, when speaking to The Mirror, via the Liverpool Echo, in 2015.
He acknowledged that these days club ownership is a “billionaire’s game”, which likely rules Bowe out, just as it proved to be too much of a stretch for Bill Kenwright.
The problem, as Everton fans have come to know all too well, is finding the right one, as Moshiri’s decision-making has often undercut his heavy spending to leave the club in the situation it is in now, with Frank Lampard in the process of building the club back from the bottom of the Premier League.