Shocked Everton sweat on FFP charge as new stadium finance and MSP Sports Capital deal hang in the balance
The FFP charge from the Premier League is now the latest issue complicating the long-awaited investment in Everton and the new stadium, The i reports.
For a year since Farhad Moshiri was obliged to hurriedly cut ties with Alisher Usmanov over the oligarch’s ties to Vladimir Putin, the owner has been variously looking to replace his sponsorship income and secure financing for the dock-side stadium development, as well as selling a portion of the clubs equity or even the Toffees as a whole.
MSP Sports Capital have been close to completing a deal for minority investment for weeks now without an announcement, and now the charge from the league, which left Everton “shocked”, has thrown a new spanner in the works of the “impending sale” and cash to fund the stadium.
The i reports that the breach is thought to relate to the £500million development itself, but the club are completely in the dark over what happens now, with the issue of relegation already a complicating factor.
“The charge comes at a delicate time for Everton with inward investment and a deal for stadium financing both understood to be “imminent”.
“The club’s precarious Premier League status may be delaying both but the impact of this charge is another potential complication for both deals.”
Mayhem
It’s hard to know where to start with the latest thing for Everton fans to worry about because it stinks from so many angles.
Supporters have long since grown sick of the mismanagement of the Toffees under Moshiri, Bill Kenwright and the current board, and the interlinked calamities that continue to tumble out of the club on a regular basis are the reason why.
There are suspicions among other clubs of this charge being “politically motivated” [Daily Mail, 25 March], since the Premier League gave assurances a year ago that things were in order at Goodison and yet they have now cracked down amid scrutiny from Westminster and plans for an independent regulator.
So, while there should definitely be a spotlight shone on the decision-making that has gone into this and outrage if those suspicions are founded, it doesn’t take the heat off those in charge at Everton.
The MSP deal was already being called into question prior to the charge on Friday (24 March), with The Esk reporting on 14 March that interest “has wained”, so issues with the authorities on top of an ongoing relegation battle isn’t going to help there.
Moshiri has had opportunities to sell the club outright already according to the Daily Mail (7 March), but has ignored them in case his links to Usmanov are probed by the government, so the turmoil associated with his era looks set to continue.
It is a particularly maddening catch-22 that the money Moshiri, as with Usmanov, brought to the club has only created more problems, now unable to spend it freely and in trouble where it is used.
Even the glittering new stadium that’s on the horizon, which felt like the one major positive from the hierarchy’s current plans, is apparently now the root of these latest problems.
It is almost possible to forget that there is actually a football team at the centre of this mess, with Sean Dyche somehow supposed to get his squad, itself lacking quality, to focus on getting results amid such a culture of chaos.