Everton takeover: Bizarre ‘Colombia drug money’ update shared by Forbes journalist
Yes, you read the headline correctly. A Forbes journalist is claiming that he’s been told Colombian drug money is somehow involved in 777 Partners’ takeover of Everton.
Unbelievable.
Writing on the Forbes website on Sunday (26 November), journalist Mike Ozanian reported that after a deal was struck between Farhad Moshiri and the US-based investment firm, there were concerns about how they were going to finance the deal.
That’s nothing new. It’s been widely reported for some time that there are worries at Goodison Park about how 777 will stump up the funds to buy the Merseyside club, pay off all of the club’s creditors and finish the completion of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.
On 20 December, The Daily Mail reported that other Premier League owners had worries about the funds too as 777 have been fighting a number of court cases in the USA while other clubs owned by them have experienced financial difficulties.
Ozanian has revealed that when those concerns emerged, he was told by a source that “the money was coming from Colombia drug money”.
It’s quite an unbelievable claim by the Forbes journalist, who’s probably done very little to verify that claim before putting it out there.
There’s been a lot of negativity surrounding 777’s takeover, with this website also having doubts about whether they are the right company to take Everton Football Club forward.
But this is just crazy.
Surely, if that’s the case, there’ll be more than just a few court cases against them in the USA.
Moshiri may have dealt previously with a Russian oligarch in Alisher Usmanov but there’s no way he’d want to get mixed up in something like this and would pull the cord as soon as he had any kind of inkling over the truth about this claim.
The Premier League wouldn’t touch it either if there was a hint of truth. There’s just no way.
There’s a lot to worry about with 777’s takeover at Goodison Park but goodness gracious, it’s not this.
In other Everton news, Man United star Bruno Fernandes has had his say on the Blues’ 10-point deduction.