Talking the Blues Podcast 24 March 2024 

Paul:  Good morning, good afternoon or good evening depending upon where in the world you are and what time of the day you’re listening to this episode of Talking the Blues. We’re into the second week of a three -week period without any football, which I suppose means that we’ve got football again next week is that right Andy? 

Andy: I’ve lost track. I think we have yeah I mean next weekend we got Bournemouth. 

Paul: Yes that’s right I can’t go into an Easter weekend without football surely. 

George: No that would be ridiculous wouldn’t it? That would be crazy but yeah I’m pretty certain it’s born next on the older agenda for Sean Dyche and the boys. Bournemouth Away. 

Paul: Pardon? Bournemouth Away as well isn’t it? Yeah. Not our favourite place to go. 

Andy: Yeah there’s been times when it looks like it is going to be a happy hunting ground and we’ve managed to throwaway games there, or cough up leads and what have you, but still, let’s hope we can go there and do something, because they’ve been in fairly decent form at home with late. 

George: Three o ‘clock next Saturday. And as always, we need a result. 

Paul: It feels a bit like the close season, doesn’t it? Because it’s so long since we’ve played. Everybody seems to have forgotten the fact that we’re in the middle of a potential relegation and obviously with the commission hearing to come in the beginning of April, and Nottingham Forest as well, the whole situation is going to change rapidly, I think, in the next few weeks, well next couple of weeks really, seems quite bizarre doesn’t it? 

Andy: I mean while we’re talking football, one thing I would, I wanted to just talk about it last time, but we kind of got side tracked with all the I’m sure we’re going to return to that today. 

Paul: Not a chance Andy, no, not a chance. 

George: I believe that. There’s a flying pig.

Andy: You made it first here. Yeah. I just wanted to consider whether we shot the bolt too quickly on Ellis Simms, given his recent run of form for Coventry. 

And I was looking at some numbers a couple of days ago on Alex Sims vis -a -vis DCL and you know, people are going to say, well, Sims hasn’t played long enough in the Premier League and DCL has always been in Premier league, blah, but his actual strike rate per game is actually better than DCLs. 

And DCL’s had the stability, if you like, of one club. He’s had the instability of umpteen managers, but he’s had the stability of 1 club, whereas Simms has been on his travels, he has at Everton, and he has been at Hearts, at Sunderland and elsewhere as well, I can’t think where else he has been. 

Now obviously we sold him to Coventry, And I’m just wondering whether we shot the ball in selling him too early, because he’s been in good form recently for Coventry, he scored a couple of hat -tricks, you know, they’re now into the semi -finals of the FA Cup, and I know that people will say, yeah, but he is playing at a level, um, it’s not the level that Everton are playing now, well… 

George: Well, exactly. I beg to, you know, not argue, but counter that with Coventry are in the top half of the championship heading for the playoffs and in good form and then the semi -final of FA Cup. Ever languishing again, third year on the top, at the wrong end of Premier League table nowhere near the semi -final of the FA Cup. 

Andy: I would wager to think that Ellis Sims thinks the level he’s playing at is currently far superior to the level that Everton are currently playing at. And it just made me wonder, given the fact that we are so desperately sure of someone to put the ball in the net, despite the best efforts of DCL and Beto and everybody else, we haven’t got anyone who’s in Union bag with anything like any regularity. 

And it just made me think the other day that maybe the decision, you know, to sell Sims to Coventry was taken a little bit early, and certainly not for anything, like what we possibly could have got through. 

Well, I think we got eight million for him. There’s been plenty of other people who’ve gone from clubs for considerably more than we took for for Simms and I just think it’s, I think we’ve lost an opportunity with the boy, I really do. 

George: I don’t think we gave him long enough, and I don’t think the managers who had him, put up faith in him. i don’t think that the directors of football, who he played and played under, put enough faith into him i think. 

Andy: We talked the price we got for him too soon and like I said, in my opinion, right or wrong way, I think it’s a missed opportunity with the lad. I’ve been giving him longer. And I’m open for a discussion on that. 

George: Sorry, Paul. Paul, go on. Oh, it was done. In that case, Andy. Well, I’m not sure what we can say, you know, it’s a fait complete, Andy might well be right. I must say I didn’t shed any tears when he went. 

And I am happy for him that he’s knocking the ball, he is scoring goals and playing well. That’s great, absolutely brilliant, but there’s nothing we could do about it. It’s just, you know, fait accompli. 

But, Andy might well be right in hindsight, we could certainly do with the goals. 

I mean, hindsight is a wonderful commodity, but you don’t get me wrong. But I felt when he was with us that we didn’t give him enough opportunity. And when he went out on loan, everywhere he went, he scored goals, he might not have scored home, he may not have been, you know, it was no Jimmy Greaves, don’t get me wrong, you know. 

But he scored goals at Sunderland, he score goals at hearts, scoring goals, at Coventry. And I think given the opportunity, or have you been given a better opportunity? Evan, I think he would have come good for us. 

It’s hard. How much do we spend on Beto? 

Andy: Well, we haven’t actually spent it yet, have we? 

George: All right. 

Andy: Well, it’s a more than considerable sum. It’s certainly a dam side more than we’ve got for Simms

Paul: No, 30 million, isn’t it? 

Andy: I thought it was about 25, 26 million something like that. 

Paul: I felt it a bit more that, around about 30. All right. 

Andy: Well let’s err on the side of caution. Let’s just pump at the low end of 20 million. That’s more than double what we got for Ellis Simms. 

George: And who would you pick first in the playground? 

Andy: Well, quite honestly, right at this minute, you take Ellis Simms every day to week and twice on a Sunday. There you go. No offense to Beto. He’s probably working out and doing his damnedest, but he just isn’t hitting the onion sack as a) we want him to and b) you know for a man who is a centre forward should be doing we need worrying I don’t think he’s worrying defenders either I really don’t think there’s a centre half in the premiership who is terrified of Beto and I don’t think it’s that many who are who were terrified a DCL, if I’m brutally honest, they might not be terrified of Ellis Simms

 either, but if we kept him and not signed Beto, we’d have been saving ourselves a whole chunk of money, which is another commodity that we’re not blessed with at the minute either. 

Paul: Doesn’t it all come back to our style of play. Frankly, I don’t really think it would matter who we had as a number nine to the ball in the box often enough and we don’t get that ball delivered from the right positions. 

As we talked about previously, getting defenders to defend facing their own goal is against just lumping balls into the boxes and having an isolated number nine. But isn’t that the paradox of where we are?

Andy: Paul is that under Dyche we’re creating lots and lots of chances. We’re just not putting them away. 

George: That’s what the stats say, yeah. 

Andy: Yeah, I mean, we get the ball in the area, with having as many efforts on goal as most any other team, certainly in the lower half of the table, but we’re not just converting them. I don’t know, you’ve got, it’s all about quality of service and then quality finishing right in a minute, we certainly haven’t got the quality of finishing and the quality services is variable at the moment. 

George: Why would on the quality -of -service, did I read a thing saying that Harrison is going back to Leeds? 

Andy: Oh, I’ve not seen that.

Andy:. That’s news to me. Right, fair enough.

George: So it may be comfortable for just, you know, journalistic gossip, clickbait stuff that I fell for. 

Paul: There’s an awful lot of that about. I heard a little whisper from somebody at Leeds, who’s quite senior at Leeds on the management side, not on the playing side, that they were quite happy to sell him to us and he was quite happy to come to us. 

But the issue, as is ever the case, I suppose it was price that we wanted to acquire services for price much lower than what Leeds considered as value to be. And that was probably I think the last time I spoke to the gentleman concerned was about five or six weeks ago. 

Andy: I wonder if that position’s changed because now they’re top of the division, aren’t they? It’s the top of the Championship. And yeah, one suggests looking, looking very, very certain or very very close to being certain of being promoted back to the Premier League. 

Paul: But it’s also true, isn’t it, to say that, you know, I guess you can’t go too much on short term fun, short -term, what’s the word I’m looking for? Yeah. Yeah, definitely memory. Short- term form, thank you. 

The producer was whispering in my short -term form, he’s not really done a huge amount in recent weeks, has he? 

Andy: No, no, unfortunately. I think, I mean, it’s one of those plays, isn’t it? I mean he is probably a good, honest, solid worker, you know, comes into training, works hard in training, manager selects him, gets out on the pitch and he’s just not at the level that we need. 

Paul: No, but again, we have to be realistic in terms of what we needed and what were able to attract and indeed able to keep might be two entirely different things. I mean, just going back to Simms, a slightly different view than you Andy. 

I know he’s played in every single game in the Championship for Coventry this season, either starting or on the bench, and I think he’s scored nine or ten goals. 

Andy: I think it’s 11 he has got now. With the two he got in a quarter -final against Wolves, 

Paul: I believe he is only 11. Okay, so I think then it’s nine in the Championship, isn’t it? Around those figures. He really doesn’t light my fire. 

Andy: Well, no, I accept that. The immediate counsel would be, who’s our top scorer at the moment? 

George: Oh, yeah, absolutely totally, we’re totally devoid in that area. 

Andy: I’m not suggesting he’s the solution. I am just suggesting that, in my opinion, I think we removed to sell him too early. I don’t think we gave him enough of a chance, is all I’ve suggested. I’m not saying he is the goose that would have laid the golden egg, far from it, but I just think that considering what we got for him and what we’re likely to spend in the effort to replace him, did we move him on too quickly? 

George: Who had the ultimate decision on selling him? Was that Mr Thelwell or Mr Dyche or whoever? 

Andy: It must have been both of them. I mean at the end of the day, 

As I could say it’s a hindsight argument, and it’s not like he’s on loan and we could bring you back anything like that. I just think it, while there’s no foot at the minute, I think that there is a lad who moved on, he took his time to settle in at Coventry, he is now scoring pretty regularly in recent weeks. 

He’s playing in a semi -final of the FA Cup, and people can say, as I said before, people could say he isn’t at our level. I’m sorry, but he ain’t that far away from our level at the moment, he’s at the top end of the championship, we’re at the bottom end at a premiership, they’re in a lot between it. 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, there’s a massive discussion as to what our level is. I suspect that the accountant probably had a fair amount to do with the fact that he was sold, Andy. 

George: Right. 

Andy: All right. 

Paul: Because, you know, if it was nine million, it is nine million clear profit. 

Andy: Yeah. Yeah and yield amortisation a bit. 

Paul: No, 

Andy: I meant that. That’s what I mean, Paul. Sorry. I wasn’t clear on that, but he’s come to the Academy, so any sale is pure profit. Yeah, 

Paul: Correct. And obviously we’re going to find out next month, aren’t we, in the next couple of weeks, what our situation is with regards to the next commission. But it also, you know, has I think it has to have been a factor. 

Andy: Yes, very probably, 

Paul: even though, as you say, quite rightly, totally devoid of scoring of alternatives. 

George: I mean, I just hope he goes on and I hope to get to the final now. Who did play in the semis? Oh, hi, man, you. I suppose we suddenly all become sky blues for that weekend, don’t we? 

Paul: Well, it would be great for Coventry cities to get back to the FA Cup final, wouldn’t it? I mean, the 87 Cup Final? 

George: Yeah. Yeah, that was one of the best Cup Finals ever, wasn’t it. 

Andy: It wasn’t bad. I don’t think it’s up to 66 or 84. 

Paul: Well, no, obviously, I mean, from an Evertonian’s perspective, not. 

Andy: From a neutral point of view, it was an enjoyable game to watch, yeah. 

Paul: Yeah. What was the name of the manager? Was it Brian Sinnott? 

Andy: Oh, was it Sinnett? It was a duo, 

Paul: Wasn’ it? Brian Sinnett, wouldn’t it. It’s in it. Is it Bryan? A big guy. Bald as a coot. Yeah, a big guys with a bald eye. Yeah Yeah and quite a large nose. 

George: Oh geez, oh gee. Coventry fan. It’ll be goose steppin’ into the south of France now. 

Was it Keith Houchin who scored the goal? 

Andy: Yeah Yes. 

George: I haven’t looked this up. This is just  from memory. It was John Sillit. He was the one with the perfect attack. I can’t remember who the point that was. 

Paul: Well done, George. Thank you for that. 

Andy: Yeah, good one, bro. 

Paul: Okay, so Andy is secretary of the Simms fan club. club. What else have you got for us, Andy? 

Andy: I think we’ve got another missed opportunity. And I’m referring now to the shirt that Everton have made to commemorate Seamus’ Coleman time with the club, which when you look at it, it’s actually quite a nice shirt but I think the club have missed an enormous opportunity because from all accounts, and I’ve seen this from a number of people, the shirt that’s commemorating Seamus Coleman, an Irish player playing for Everton for 15 years who’s captain of Ireland and this special shirt isn’t available in Ireland. 

What on earth possessed the club to commission a shirt and not make it available in the country that the player comes from and where he is the international team’s captain seems a ludicrous oversight in my opinion. 

And furthermore, why didn’t they make it available without the sponsor’s logo? Because I’m sure that shirt is selling well. Don’t get me wrong. I hope it is selling well for the club’s benefit, but I just think if that shirt had been available without having Stake.com plastered all over the front of it, in my opinion, I think it would have sold in much bigger numbers than it’s currently selling. 

I really do. And I point to the fact that at least two other major clubs offer adult -sized shirts without sponsors local goals on occasion. Celtic, we’ve got a massive worldwide fan base and West Ham, who probably got a simple worldwide fund base to ourselves, possibly. 

I don’t know. But I just think the fact that the commission this year and it’s not available in Ireland or it wasn’t available on Ireland certainly 10 days ago whether it is now or not, I’m not sure but the fact is it wasn’t and just seems like another enormous missed opportunity from whoever made the decision to commission it and whatever. 

I just think you know whether whether there was Kitbag whether it was Hummel whoever’s decision and didn’t and overlooked the factor hello we’ve got a market in Ireland that we’re not, we not feeding, just seems barking to me, 

Paul: But the bizarre thing about that, Andy, is it really makes no difference to the club at all whether we sell the shirts in Ireland or not. We don’t earn any more revenue from it. The idea that we sell a load of shirts anywhere in the world and we generate more revenue for the club is, it’s a bit of a fantasy really. 

I mean, at the margins… 

Can I broaden it out then? Yeah, sure. How many other clubs have got shirt deals that provide them with little or no income? No, I’m not saying there’s little or not income. What I am saying is that given the nature of the contract that we signed both with Hummel and with Fanatics or Kitbag as they were known. 

We pretty much get a flat fee so the uptick on increased sales in Ireland or anywhere else is so marginal that it virtually makes no difference at all. Because we wanted to guarantee a relatively high minimum figure, the price of having that relatively low minimum figures is that you don’t get much of the upside if indeed you manage to sell more shirts anywhere else. 

So there’s no incentive really for the manufacturer or indeed the distributor to sell more shirts on your behalf. The other point of course is that given the nature of the contract that we have with Fanatics is if Fanatics don’t have a presence in that country and they appoint what you’d call a regional distributor, they have to share their margin with that regional distributor, which is one of the reasons why for years and years and yes,  it’s probably still the case, you know, there’s only a very small number of places where you can buy an Everton shirt anywhere in England, because they won’t, they want to share the revenue, the margins of profit margins, with whomever it is that’s stocking the shirt. 

Andy: Right. 

Paul: Yeah.  Now, you know, obviously, there’s a if you’re sitting around the table having this discussion as to what the contract should look like. You’d hope that somebody would say, well, hang on a minute. The more people have got everything shirts, wearing everything shirts kids in particular at school, to use your point about the sponsor’s logo. 

That means that we’re building a fan base, we’ve got future Evertonians, Evertonian who will want to come and visit Goodison Park or indeed Bramley Moore in the future, so we should do it anyway. But that thought process doesn’t seem to exist at Everton. 

And it’s funny, the comment that you made a couple of minutes ago about, and do West Ham have a bigger fan base across the world? I visited a lot of countries because I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do so. 

Maybe I just look for Evertonians, but I find more Evertonians than virtually any other club apart from perhaps Liverpool, United and Chelsea. 

Andy I wish I shared that viewpoint Paul, because I lived in Africa for a couple of years and we were well down the list of shirts readily available in Africa. Let me tell you in Ghana it was predominantly Chelsea, Arsenal and United. 

In Sudan, it was predominantly Arsenal. And a smattering of United shirts. I did actually see one, I do remember distinctly, seeing one guy in an Everton away shirt, a Tim Cahill shirt when I was in Khartoum, because I nearly crashed my car when I saw him walking down the road. 

Paul: He must have lost it. 

Andy\I mean when i was In Nigeria it was it, was all Chelsea, Chelsea and Arsenal. But, there you go, I mean, but I just, so, we, tell me if I’m getting this right, Everton ask Hummel to do a special show to commemorate Seamus Coleman’s 15 years as an Everton player. 

And Fanatics are the people who sell it on the club’s behalf, or market it, on the club’s behalf. But literally, the only outlet is through Everton Football Club. Just on that one shirt alone, whether it’s got Stake.com on front or not, just on that one shirt alone, that I think that’s inordinately dumb. 

Paul: I’m not supporting the club’s stance in any sense on this, Andy. We know that they are years behind, decades behind probably, in terms of commercial arrangements, their thinking. But it’s been driven by this “let’s minimise the risk and maximise the, the minimum levels of income that we can generate” strategy

And that goes back to Robert Elstone’s thinking, where he was more interested in getting Everton on the TV than he ever was selling merchandise, because by his reckoning, they, money that you got for appearing live on TV, slightly different than today, was greater than all the efforts of involved in selling shirts or other merchandise around the world. 

George: Right. 

But actually Andy’s story about Sudan and Nigeria proves that Chelsea and Arsenal have got it right and we’ve got it hopelessly wrong. 

Andy: Well let me just qualify it on Chelsea when I was in Ghana, Chelsea produced a new kit. If I remember rightly, it was the first kit they had with Yokohama as their main shirt sponsor. The day after Chelsea showed that kit off in London, it was on sale in Acra. 

There’s no way in the memory of man no shirts had come from a Chelsea supplier. They’ve been produced locally. You could get just about any sport shirt you wanted,, trust me. I’m not saying they were genuine Chelsea shirts. 

Almost certainly they were hooky copies but the point was there were people buying them in droves. There were people who wanted to walk around the car in Chelsea tops whether they culture or not? 

While we’re on this subject, could we have two seconds on the cost of the New England kit? £115 for a junior, £135 for an adult. What message is this sending to football fans? 

George: Wow, I didn’t know that. 

Andy: Yeah, it’s absolutely obscene that they’re asking that kind of money for it. 

George: Is that just the shirt or is it the full kit? 

Andy: I imagine it’s, well, I hope it is the full -kit, yeah, i don’t know.  I mean I saw that 115 for a junior shirt and 125 for an adult shirt. 

.Paul: Just the shirt. Yeah, yeah 

Andy: That’s truly an obscene 

George: It’s just so curlingly greedy. 

Paul: Yeah. Is this the one with the coloured St. George’s flag on the collar? That doesn’t matter what’s on. 

George: The bloody shit. It’ll be changed within the next 12 months. 

Paul: No, no, I Get that I’m saying that there was a little bit of concern amongst some of our less woke England fans, about the fact that it was a rainbow St. George’s flag. 

Andy: Brilliant. But Nike have since said, well, I think it’s Nike said, that the colours used in that cross on the nape of the shirt reflect the picture of the 66 World Cup winning squad that was taken where they had a blue tracksuit with maroon socks on. 

It’s certainly got a lot of people steamed up, 

George: that’s for sure. You should just manufacture two shirts, one with a rainbow flag and one with the red and white one for boneheads. 

Paul: Of all the things to get wound up about. 

George: Yep. Well… Hmm. 

Well, it is. The price is ridiculous. That’s just saying to football fans, you’re gullible and we’re going to milk you. 

Andy: It happens with every team, every club, and every season only. 

George: Yeah, three times because they have a home -kit away kit and a third kit. And then a goalie or two or three goalie kits, please. 

Paul: Is it maybe not like knowing their markets and not defending them, I’m just saying, knowing the markets and knowing who’s likely to buy those shirts? 

George: Well, yeah, if they price them there, they must expect to sell them. 

Andy: you definitely don’t come up with a price like that without having done your marketing research. No, no, 

Paul: The point being is that they’re likely to sell many more shirts in the south where perhaps there’s more disposable income than they are in the north. Possibly, yeah. So they price them. So, they priced them accordingly. 

Andy: Makes me wonder what input the Football Association has into the pricing structure or whether they are just happy for England supporters to get milk left, right and centre. 

Paul: I think you’ve just answered your own question .I don’t follow England at all, but Branthwaite didn’t get a game last night, did he? 

Andy: No, there was a novel decision by Gareth Southgate in a friendly game to start with Harry Maguire and Henry Clay, and then bring on 33 -year -old Lewis Dunk, who sure as hell is going to be a mainstay of the Euro squad, not. 

I mean, what is the point, you know, you give him the call up, the guys, Branthwaite had the biggest meat injection since, I don’t know when, when he gets advised that he’s been selected to join the England squad. 

And he has got a potential appearance against Brazil, who’s got to beat every football fan’s dream to play against, and he’s made to sit on the bench, you know, I’m not having a pop at Harry Maguire just for the sake of it, just because he plays for United, but you would have thought that if he is going to make a change, give the youngster the chance. 

You know, why put Lewis Dunk on? Is Lewis Dunk seriously going to be part of the England squad for the Euro Championship? I very much doubt it. I mean, Branthwaite must be on the bus coming home now. 

George: Well, maybe he’s going to blood him against Lukaku and Belgium on Tuesday, I don’t know. But he must think, hang on a minute, what am I doing here? What am I doing here? 

Paul: It’s just nuts. You just thought the wide -open turfs of Wembley would be ideal for Branthwaite, wouldn’t you? 

George: Yeah. 

Paul: Big lads, big strides, covers the ground well fast, etc. against a probably not that physical Brazil team, perfect opportunity in front of how many people were at Wembley last night? 

Andy:  Enough. I didn’t watch it to be honest. To be honest I’ve read all this on the internet last night and this morning and what have you about, don’t be put on ahead of Branthwaite shining a pine. 

And you just make you think, hang on a minute, you know, John  Stones is going to be the mainstay of the centre of that defence, surely, for the Euros. It would have been a great opportunity to play the two together. 

They’re both similar. They both, they’re all playing centre halves, rather than lumping forward merchants. They’re both stylish in the way they play their football as well, you know, come on Southgate, wake up, smell the coffee. 

Paul: Stones, I don’t know whether Stones was available last night or not, but Stones and Branthwaite in front of Pickford is an absolute dream. You would think so, wouldn’t you? You think? No. No, if you’re going into any international tournament, World Cup, whatever, and you’ve got Stones and Branthwaite in front of Pickford, you are probably struggling to find a better combination, 

Andy: Yeah, I’d go along with that combination. But fine, two decent fullbacks either side of them two, we’ve got a rock solid defence 

Paul: Well, you’ve certainly got a defence that you’d be prepared to tune in and watch. 

George: Yeah, I think you’re being unfair on Lewis Dunk who can play. And it may well, there has to be some room for sentiment in football. The guy’s past perhaps is very, very best. and somebody’s gone, have an international cap, son, stick it on your shelf. 

Plenty of time for Branthwaite. And had he played and got injured, we’d have been cursed. 

Andy: Yes, 

Paul: That’s very true. Yeah, to be fair, I quite like Dunk. I think he’s a good player. And he played well against us often enough. 

Andy: Yeah. True enough, fair enough! There we go. What else have we got to talk about, Paul? 

Paul: Just going to just call it quits there and say thanks for joining us, guys. See you next week. 

Andy: Oh, really? 

George: Come on. Bring us up to date. What on earth is going on with this letter of conditional intent or whatever the hell it is? It sounds like one of those things Americans say before they get married. 

Paul: It’s not, it’s no, It is not far off, although actually, I think it is probably closer to a divorce paper than it is a prenup, if the truth be known. So Bloomberg, which is obviously a global news agency, specialises particularly in financial matters, managed to get hold of a copy of the letter that was sent from the Premier League. 

Originally, I thought it was just sent to 777, but it wasn’t, it was sent to both Farhad Moshiri and Everton Football Club. And essentially, it is an update on where the Premier League was with regards to the proposed 777 takeover. 

And within the letter, it said that they were minded to approve 777, subject to certain conditions, and it then laid out what those conditions were. And I just thought that I thought the response to that was, first of all, extraordinary. 

And I’m not having a go at anybody, well, not anybody in particular. Well, I’m having a go at people collectively, because everybody saw this as, well, this is just a precursor to the agreement. And in a matter of weeks, we will have 777 as our new Lords and Masters. 

It’s not that it’s all from my experience, a we’re minded to approve subject to conditions is a very very polite way of saying we’re not at all minded to approve. It’s a legal way, from a legal perspective of saying sorry guys you haven’t convinced us and this comes you know more than six months after after the process was started and the conditions which were attached to the letter in conjunction with all of the other conditions that just come as a standard to buying a Premier League club these days and are so onerous on triple seven that I can’t see it possibly happening and I think this is just a means of saying to triple -seven well it will approve you if you can meet these conditions but actually we don’t think you could meet these conditions. 

So it’s an easier way for the Premier League to say, actually, guys, sorry, we don’t want you as owners of Everton Football Club. 

Andy: But Paul, correct me if I’m wrong, last week you said that the Premier League can’t say that. They can only say come in. 

Paul: Well, yes. And if I was the Premier League’s lawyer, I would stand up in Court and say well, we invited them in, but they didn’t meet the conditions, But it’s a private members club as we talked about previously and conditions of membership of the following. Had they met those conditions then they would now be the owners of Everton football club. Do the other thing and I’ll talk about conditions in a minute. The thing is it is a sort of assumption that just because this letter appeared and I think it was the 18th of March last Monday that these conditions have only just been determined. 

That’s not true. These conditions have been known for quite some time. And I actually tweeted in September, a week after the, Moshiri’s agreement was announced on the 15th of September. I tweeted or posted on X, as you should now say, I suppose, on the 23rd of September, what the conditions were, and the conditions where repaying the existing creditors. 

Now, at the time, I said that included Rights and Media Funding. R&MF appear not to require repayments immediately. But MSP does, for sure, and MSP are currently owed 158 million. 

The incoming 777 have to finish off payment for the stadium. They have to provide working capital for the club to see the club through to the end of the season and again that needs some explanation beyond that. 

And we also found out, if the reports from Josimar are correct. What it was, the final amount that Farhad Moshiri is going to be paid for his shares, which was £68 million. 

George: Is that in lock, stock and buy or is that just like an opening gambit for him? 

Paul: Well, it can increase to I think a maximum of around £130 million, but that’s obviously subject to different performance criteria. I would assume on the pitch and you know, you obviously include qualifying for Europe staying in the Premier League. 

Andy: It’s results incentivised. 

Paul: Yes. Yeah. 

Yeah, but the base price is 68 million. But I stress, this wasn’t something that just came out of the Premier League after six or seven months of thinking about it and talking to 777, this is something that’s been known for quite some time. 

And my question, and you know, listening to this podcast, will know I’ve got many questions of 777 is why they’ve not been able to. I think I know the answer, but why have they not been able to meet these conditions prior to this period now. 

And the interesting thing with this is for the first time there appears to be a bit of a deadline in the sense that MSP requires repayment of their loan before mid-April, so now is the 24th of March, effectively within three weeks. 

Again, with some knowledge of reasonably large business deals. Nobody really expects conditions just to be created and then completed with certain conditions of this nature within a three -week period. 

So I can only assume that this has been known both by the Premier League, by Everton and by 777 themselves for quite a period of time and can I ask a question then yeah if if we get to that mid-April point whereby MSP want that 158 million back and this deal has not been concluded does their timeline expand, or are they going to go “right somebody needs to cough up the big fat cheque?”. 

Well, I think so. And if so, who has to cough up the big fat cheque? I think that will depend upon MSP’s position at the time. 

Right. I don’t really want to go into all of the details. Oh, OK. MSP have certain rights going into next month, where if they’re not paid, they can do certain things. 

To be honest, I know hundreds of people on social media think that I work for MSP or have some form of association with MSP. 

I don’t think their intentions are bad. that they’re just protecting their interests and the interests of the people who have invested with them. And, you know, because the deal for them to become owners of Everton Football Club was knocked back by R&MF last summer. 

Obviously it becomes a deadline when they want their money back because their money is not being invested in the manner in which they thought it was going to be invested. they thought that their money would end up not only part paying for the stadium but it would end with some form of ownership, 25% of Everton Football Club. 

Now it’s paid for part of the stadium, that money has been well used and in fact was used by the early part of last summer, but because R&MF declined or used their option rather to stop the deal where MSP got 25% of Everton  football club, they didn’t get the equity stake that they are expecting. 

So you know, within the contract, the lawyers will have said, there will come a date when by if we haven’t got our money back, if we hadn’t gotten the equity, then the following things will happen. 

And this letter from the Premier League really is just confirmation of the fact that there is a deadline. And the deal, as is suggested, by the Premier League and the conditions attached to that deal becomes a different deal after that date. 

That’s what this letter is saying. So they’re saying to 777, if you want to conclude the deals that have been in front of us for several months, then you have to do the following things. You have to pay off MSP, you’ve to convert the loans you give us, Everton Football Club, which is possibly £180 million into equity. 

You have to complete the stadium financing, which I think is around about £100 million,  and you have to make sure that the club has enough money to see it through to the end of the season, which is probably another 60 million right? 

So if you had all of that up, it comes to, off the top of my head, he comes through around about 530 million. And that’s money which I don’t believe 777 has. And that’s why I think, and I stress this in my opinion, that is why this deal has taken so long to get to the point where something had to be said because there was a deadline looming. 

Andy: Oh dear. So most of the media, most of the social media and many of fans think that this is a deal or rather, this letter is a deal that confirms 777 as future owners. 

Paul: My thinking, and I’m quite happy to be a contrarian, being a contrarian for much of my life, is the exact opposite. 

One, because I don’t believe that 777 are in a position to meet the conditions that are attached. 

Andy: Well, if it were, surely they would have done so by now. 

Paul: Well that’s exactly the point. It doesn’t serve anybody’s purposes for the deal to have taken this long. Consider what’s happened to Everton Football Club in the last six months, our position has deteriorated both financially and competitively on the pitch. And if you look at 777, 777’s reputation and 777’s finances have deteriorated over the same period of time. 

So it was in everybody’s best interests for this deal to have been completed as soon as possible. And the only reason, and I think this letter confirms this, the only reason it hasn’t completed to this date is 777’s inability to meet the conditions that are attached? 

And my simple question would be to anybody, what makes you believe that somebody can achieve something in the final four weeks when conditions are worse than they have been at any time in the previous seven months that they haven’t been able to achieve in those previous 7 months? 

George: The only answer I could give you to that, which would be cynical, would be that the Premier League is going for goodness sake, concoct something that makes it possible for us to go, yes, go ahead and put an end to this farce. 

Because I can’t believe that the Premier League is enthusiastic about what’s going on under their watch. 

Andy: No, but at the same time, if, as you say, that’s a subliminal, for God’s sake, do something to get it done, and they did get done and then the wheels came off, there’s some majorly brown stuff being thrown at Premier League for approving it. 

George: Well, Andy, somewhere along the line, somebody has got to use the vernacular if they’ll get the pot. 

Andy: Yes, I totally agree. I guess that goes back to the absentee owner then. Surely, the one person who’s got it within his remit to make decisions of that magnitude is  Moshiri, or am I barking up the wrong tree? 

Paul: Well, I would argue at the moment, the controlling point in all of this is the fact that MSP needs repaying. Right. I think it’s, and again, you know, I am neither positive or negative on MSP, pretty neutral, to be honest. 

I just think the factor is that they need repaying because they have their own investors needs to satisfy. And because 777 were unable to do what they needed to do up to this point, is why we’ve reached this point is which is, you know, why the Premier League have had to write a letter that says these are the conditions and effectively, this is the timeframe in which these conditions have to be met. 

Right. There’s another complication over and above that, which would apply to anybody that’s buying a Premier League club. And that is whatever the cost of buying the Premier League club is, and there’s a sort of a definition of what the cost is. 

It’s not just the price that you pay the shareholder, it’s all to do with how much money you’re going to invest, how much money the football club needs to continue its normal operations. Only 65% of that can be borrowed. 

35% has to be cash that’s provided by the new buyer. 

Andy: Right. This is to stop a Glazer type deal. 

Paul: Absolutely. Yeah. So it’s to, in technical terms, the over leverage of a purchase. The the buyer has to put cash up a bit like you know if you go when in good economic times you can get a 95 or 100 percent mortgage, but in high interest rate, poor difficult market conditions the banks say well no maybe we can give you a 75 mortgage right in these circumstances. And in current circumstances in the Premier League the rules are that you can borrow 65% of whatever the cost is, but you have to put up 35% yourself. 

So that means, you know, in very rough terms, if the total cost is around 530 million, something like 185 million has to be provided in cash. And the rest can be provided as a loan. And that loan sits with the football club, not with the buyer. 

The problem with that, for Everton, is a) this ignores R&MF facility, which is £225 million. Metro Bank, we owe £20 million too. And we touched on this a little bit before, we still owe a lot of clubs a lot of money for transfers that we’ve not yet paid for. 

Plus, the club is still loss making. So further money is required for that, plus Sean Dyche at the end of this season is going to say, I can’t go through another season with the squad that I’ve got. I need the following list of players. All of which is going to fall upon the new owner. 

So we’ve got a situation where at least 530 million in both cash and loans is required, plus then all of these other additional funding requirements. 

And with the best will in the world, it doesn’t really matter who it is. I can’t see 777 being able to do that. And I’ll labour the point, if they were able to do that, they would have done it already because it doesn’t serve anybody’s purposes to have delayed it. 

Least of all theirs. If you want to get anything in life, if you really want something to happen, you get it done as quickly as you possibly can. Because you actually never really know what’s around the corner. 

What you can do today you don’t necessarily know for sure that you can tomorrow because you know the world can change overnight. So the idea that they’ve stretched this out just doesn’t make any sense. 

Yeah so there we have it. It’s fascinating both in terms of what the Premier League have asked for but also the response of many many people and something which should have provided much greater clarity I actually don’t think has in the sense that I think quite a lot of people have misinterpreted it. 

George: Yeah yeah but I mean but the bottom line then Paul I’m paraphrasing massively here, but with those figures you just mentioned, we’re talking that somebody, be it 777 or ANO, needs to find in the region of £500 million plus pound for the club to stand still. 

Paul: Yes, and but that’s been the case for quite a long time. 

Andy: So the follow -up question has to be then, what is the likely outcome? 

How long have we got? 

We’ve been saying on this podcast for weeks and weeks that we’re on the edge of the precipice. Is the precipitation now crumbling beneath our feet? 

Paul: I think there’s a real danger that if we go past the mid-April deadline as suggested by Josimar and the letter that was sent out by the Premier League, then effectively all bets are off. We are then dependent upon other people, because I don’t think 777 are going to continue to fund us if they don t believe that they re going get what is their prize acquisition. 

t’s going to come back then to does Moshiri find some money in order to continue funding us to the end of the season? Does another creditor step in? And if the answer to those questions is no, then you know the only solution then is administration because we won’t be able to meet our obligations. 

George: And what is the date of the next meeting to go when we’re knocking off this number of points? 

Paul: I don’t know the precise date off the top of my head, George. I think it’s sometime in the first week in April. Right. (Correction it is today)

George: But that’s definitely part of the equation, isn’t it? 

Paul: It shouldn’t be because 777 have always given the view that they want to buy the club whether we stay in the Premier League or not.

Fair enough but it changes the equation enormously and you know even even if we’re found guilty and we get further points penalty which I think if we do get a points penalty it’d be fairly low and we’re where to be relegated then that’s a really difficult position because we lose 70 to 90 million pound of revenue next year and we are not moving into Bramley Moore next years so we’ve still got to carry the costs of running Bramley Moore and the interest costs have all the debt associated with Bramley Moore we got to carrying all those costs and you would be a Championship club.

So we get the parachute payments, but we’re still 70 to 90 million pounds short of revenues and their revenues, which currently we make a loss on. 

So it’s really difficult to see how we would get through if the worst was to happen. That’s not an indication of me saying, or in any way is it me saying we have to allow 777 to do the deal or 777 to do the deal, because I think that’s the worst possible solution. 

Andy: But it is, it’s really going to become a really critical time. 

George: Well, are we to some degree, then, I’m hoping that MSP, when their deadline arrives, that they look at us somewhat benevolently and give the club a bit more time. 

Paul: Well, to refer to M SP, I think they will look at it from their point of view. They are secure because they’ve got the stadium and the stadium lease as security. So I suspect that they would give us more time but the point is that you know at that point they have the right not to if they don’t wish to. 

And you should never get yourself in a position where you’re reliant upon somebody else’s goodwill. 

George:  Yeah, of course not. 

Paul: And, you know, if rights and media, sorry, if MSP were to say, no, we want our money back now. We’re going to put you into administration. It’s going to take a number of months before they get their money back. 

So the chance, it might not be them that did it. It might be just the fact that the directors have to turn and say, you know what, we can’t comfortably say that we’re able to pay the bills going forward, therefore we are not going to say and therefore have to go into administration. 

Andy: I think it would be very difficult for the directors not to have a legal obligation to do that.  Well, and that, that to me just compounds the silence from Farhad Moshiri, because he’s now a director of the club and we don’t hear diddly squat from him on anything. It’s like he doesn’t care then yet he is in a position where he has to care because he has a duty of responsibility. 

Paul: Well, I think you could argue that he’s failed in that duty for many, many months. 

Andy: Yeah. Well surely now he is a director, now it’s coming to crunch time, as against just, if that’s the right word, being the majority shareholder, he now is the member of the board the directors of the football club. 

George: You can’t just hide behind the nudist floor. 

Paul: No, you are absolutely right, Andy. He has a legal responsibility and if he fails in that duty, then he alongside the other two directors are going to be legally liable. I hope we don’t get to that position, but I take on board exactly your sentiment, George. 

I feel like the boy that’s crying wolf all the time, because I’ve been saying this for months and months, and you guys must be, let alone all this, must be bored to death hearing it. 

Even I get even I got bored thinking about it from time to time But that’s where we are Yeah, this has been The train has being coming down the track for a long time And yeah, the people who have the ability to make the changes which stop the worst things from happening have failed in their duty to made those changes 

George: Oh for a time when we’ve been talking the Blues can just be about football. 

Paul: It’ll be 10 minutes long. 

Laughter. 

Paul: No. The internet hasn’t gone down again, has it? 

George: No, no. I was just trying to come up with a counter to that 10 -minutes on football? 

No no, we, I’m sure the three of us, like many of you, are going to be playing football .Other Evertonians we can talk about football for as long as you like. Yeah, yeah, and it’s never been a problem to us over however many years we’ve done this so I’m sure we can get back to that. 

Andy: Let’s hope so. 

Paul: Well we’d love to. 

George: Well yeah I mean let’s let us hope we start next weekend with a resounding victory at Bournemouth and nothing would give us greater pleasure than to come over here and talk a football for an hour rather than the price of shirts and absentee owners and prospective takeover merchants who, no let’s call it a day. 

Paul:I think we’ve better had it,  unless George you’ve got anything to bring to the party?

George:  Sorry I’m just in shock, I mean in shock at how F’d up it all is. And I’d rather just not say anything now and wait and see and hope, it’s just fingers crossed isn’t it, all the time?

Paul: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay gents. Thank you both and thank you to everybody who’s listened and now reads our podcasts. Sorry, we can’t bring you happier tidings, but yeah. 

George: No, there’s no point, you know, pretending that the grass is greener or the shirts are bluer, they’re not. It’s all effed up. 

Paul: Yeah, and if I can make just one last point. I’d ask all those other Evertonians who are in a position where they have an audience, maybe other podcasts and fan channels and the Shareholders Association and FAB to really bring these issues to the fore because this needs to be something that the whole fan base a) is aware of and b) can do whatever it can do to help influence and move things forward. 

There’s one thing we did learn about Moshiri during the 27 campaign and stuff, is that eventually he does listen and whilst he may not do it quite in the way that we want him to do, he did respond at times when he was under extreme pressure. 

And I just don’t think we’ve put him under enough pressure on these matters. There have been other things which the fan base rightly have been concerned about the treatment by the Premier League in terms of profitability and sustainability, probably being the primary thing. 

But this is not just about one year, two years out of the Premier League. This is the future of our football club. And it is as existential as that. 

Andy: That word he’s used.

Paul: Well, he was the one who brought it into the Evertonian vocabulary, or lexicon, I suppose. 

Andy: Yeah, we’re there. Anyway, without going off on another 20 -minute conversation. Let’s, let’s leave it there and we can talk about the big other one next Sunday, Paul. Well, hopefully we could talk, yeah, 

George: We talked about DCL’s hat trick against, that’d be great. 

Paul Just a 5 -1 win and you can make your famous quote you made against Brighton in commentary

 All right guys, thank you so much. Thank you to everybody for listening and yeah, let’s just hope all of this gets sorted out. 

George: Oh please. 

Cheers Paul. All Right guys take care. 

Andy: You take care of yourself. Bye.