Farhad Moshiri refuses to sell up despite serious offers on table as he hides from scrutiny over Alisher Usmanov
Farhad Moshiri will not pursue any of “several serious bids” for a full takeover of Everton due to fears of government scrutiny, the Daily Mail reports.
The owner values the club at £500million but amid ongoing fan-protests at his running of the Toffees he has decided not to sell up in case it causes the government to intervene and look further into his links with Alisher Usmanov.
The Russian billionaire was sanctioned last season after the invasion of Ukraine, and the club hastily cut ties with him and his sponsorship deals through USM, so the prospect of a full takeover is apparently off the table for all-comers thanks to the risk of further action over the relationship, but MSP Sports Capital are now in line to secure a minority stake.
The Daily Mail reports: “Everton owner Farhad Moshiri has opted against selling the club amidst concerns that a sale could attract scrutiny from the government due to his links with sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov.
“Moshiri is understood to have received several serious bids for Everton, which he values at £500million, but is not pursuing any of them at present, with New York-based investment fund MSP Sports Capital expected to take a minority stake instead.”
Stuck
Toffees fans have been crying out for Moshiri and his board to go for months now as the fortunes of the club have continued to deteriorate.
Amid a second consecutive relegation battle, transfer window failures, and the third manager in the past two seasons the relationship between the hierarchy and the supporters has reached an all-time low.
Mismanagement of the club is a chief concern amid the protests and it appears that Moshiri’s ties to Usmanov are going to lumber this long-suffering fanbase with the owner for even longer, with speculation that it was the latter who funded the purchase of the club as a gift to the former emerging in the 2017 Paradise Papers leak.
It is bad enough that the club are barely clinging to Premier League survival in the hope of moving into the new stadium while they are still a top flight outfit.
But if there are multiple options for a deeply unpopular owner to move on and he is squatting on his shares in order to avoid scrutiny on his business relationships then it surely proves everything the fans are protesting against accurate multiple times over.
The decisions-making of Moshiri and the people he has around him has helped lead Everton to the brink of disaster, and it now appears that his decisions over who he has dealings with is now blocking the club from escaping this increasingly nightmarish period in its history.