Everton left in genuine fear of unpaid bills as reason for late 777 Partners payment emerges
Everton say they did not miss any payments to their own staff or to new stadium building firm Laing O’Rourke after receiving an “11th-hour payment” from 777 Partners, the Daily Mail reports.
According to Matt Hughes via the paper’s website on 30 April the prospective new Toffees owners delivered their latest loan to cover the club’s running costs earlier the same day, four days after it was expected on Friday (26 April).
That reportedly led to “genuine concerns” at the start of the new week that Everton would not be able to pay their bills.
777 sources attribute the delay to talks between the company and the club over how much money was required to cover the remainder of the season, with £16million subsequently supplied.
That now takes the Miami-based outfit’s total loans to the Toffees past £200m, but the takeover saga “remains shrouded in doubt”.
Everton takeover on life support after 777 alarm?
It looks like imminent crisis has thankfully been averted at Goodison Park and the fans can at least watch three games of football to end the campaign without worrying about relegation or administration.
But if the failure to meet the repayment deadline for the £158m MSP Sports Capital loans was a red flag in terms of Josh Wander and company’s ability to see the takeover through the issues around their funding of the club this week might be an even bigger one.
Keeping the club afloat was, and it appears just about still is, probably the top argument in their favour despite being unable to gain Premier League approval for approaching eight months, when nobody else is apparently willing or able to do so.
How real the risk of administration would be in practice if the Americans failed to deliver that money is open to debate, but there hasn’t been any explicit guarantees over where it would have come from otherwise so the fears of some, including club shareholders, were valid.
And if it is the case that the money was expected from 777 last Friday it seems a very flimsy explanation for it to have been delayed until Tuesday owing to discussions with the club over how much they actually needed.
Not only would that surely have been known some time in advance but, unless communication between different departments at Everton is nonexistent, the club wouldn’t have needed to be in fear over where the funding was.
It may be a total coincidence that 777’s budget Australian airline Bonza went into voluntary administration [Sydney Morning Herald, 30 April] just as these Toffees problems arose, and perhaps the takeover is right on schedule for this month as claimed, but the latest developments likely won’t inspire any renewed confidence.
In other Everton news, a pundit is delighted with more cash for the club as a company has wasted budget hoping for more Toffees peril.
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