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Gary Lineker believes 777 Partners’ takeover of Everton may have come too late to help them this season after they entered advanced talks.
The Miami-based investment firm are in advanced talks to purchase 100% of the Toffees with an announcement tipped to come this week, which would see Farhad Moshiri leave the club after increased scrutiny from fans in recent months.
But while speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast (13 September), former Everton striker Lineker admitted that while a change of ownership is needed he fears it may be “too late” to help them this season.
“I think it’s probably needed at Everton isn’t it, but it’s possibly a little too late to help too much this season,” he said.
“I had a wonderful year at the club and you always have an affinity towards your clubs, and I do love Everton and I had a great year there. The fans and everything, it means so much to them their football club.
“Obviously they’ve got this incredible-looking new stadium that’s [coming].
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“Fingers crossed that it’s the right takeover for the club at the right time, and it just propels them back to being a team that Everton should be and that’s a team challenging for European football, not for trying to stay in the Premier League.”
Fears
Lineker’s fears are something that a lot of Everton fans have also mentioned in the fallout from the news that 777 Partners look set to come into the club.
They own several clubs around the world and none of them are particularly successful on or off the pitch right now, with fans of Standard Liege even protesting against their ownership recently.
Moshiri is clearly out of his depth here and the club need to move on from his tenure as owner, but we can’t afford to get in new owners who aren’t interested in making us good again and just want to make money.
That’s what 777 Partners seem to be doing at other clubs and that won’t help us in our current situation. We need to be nursed back to health and given a platform to build and improve to get away from our current situation.
It’s great to see a big profile like Lineker share those concerns too, and hopefully the takeover happens but only if it’s the right thing for the long term future of the club.
In other Everton news, finance expert Kieran Maguire has reacted to the takeover news.