Welcome to this week’s transcript of the Talking the Blues Podcast, recorded on Saturday 8 June early evening, BST. Our transcripts are provided for those who have difficulty in listening to traditional podcasts or prefer the written format. The transcripts are generated by AI, and whilst almost always accurate, sometimes misinterpret occasional words.  We hope you enjoy them, feedback is always welcome:

Cast: Andy – Andy Costigan, George – George Costigan, Paul – Paul Quinn

Transcript:

 Paul: Good morning, good afternoon or good evening depending on where in the world you are and what time of the day you’re listening to this episode of Talking the Blues. George and Andy I hope it’s a beautiful early summer’s evening wherever you are and welcome. 

Andy: It is actually Paul, it’s very sunny. 

George: Beautiful. And I should be in Cheshire instead of France. Overcast, come on, here’s the news. Finally, finally. Come on. I’ve been waiting for this podcast for seven years. 

Paul: Okay, what, Branthwaite moving to Manchester United? 

Andy: Behave yourself home. 

George: That was really low. 

Andy: Yeah, that’s well out of order. 

George: That was a low ball, man. Wow. 

Paul: Well, they have been, they have been. 

George: I’m going to spend the next 45 minutes thinking how I can get back at it. 

Paul: That was bad, man. It was really bad. I do apologise. There have been rumours to that effect. But I think they’re just… 

Andy: They were bound to have no word. Just me. 

Paul: of the United Surely. 

George: He’d be a bleeding idiot if he went to Manchester United, they are a rabble. He needs to go to somebody who’s going to push him forward. They’re just going to fill holes. They don’t know what they’re doing. 

They don’t know whether it’s Christmas or Tuesday. That’s quite enough about Manchester United. 

Paul: Well whilst we’re on the subject of prance waiting, just to keep the audience waiting a little longer, what’s all this nonsense about him not being in the England squad? 

Andy: I don’t know, I’ve not seen that. What, the Irish one? Is Southgate cutting from the England squad? Yeah. What, in fact, no offence to the guy, but surely not in favour of Lewis. 

Paul: Yeah, Dunk and somebody else who I was hoping that you would know about but I can’t remember who it was. 

Andy: Oh my God. I mean I thought it was bad enough when I saw that Graham Souness has been flapping his guns today, that Southgate’s made a mistake in not taking the best English goalie in Jack Butland, not taking Butland ahead of Pickford. 

Andy: And I’m thinking Souness, you know, you’ve always added, you know, a screw loose, but you’ve really lost the plot this time, Karl. 

Paul: Yeah, so defenders Lewis Dunk, Joe Gomez, Mark Guehi, the Palace guy. From Palace, yeah. Yeah, Konsa from Villa. Villa. Luke Shaw, Stones, Trippier and Karl Walker. 

George: Well, who’s the left back? I love you. 

George: I mean, there is a left back, but Luke Shaw’s not played. 

Andy: Well, oh, no, could be is right back in it. Yeah. 

George: Trippier’s a really good right back, but he’s not as good as Carl Walker. 

Andy: So Luke Shaw is the only left back. 

George: Unless you count Joe Gomez, with deepest respect to him, I don’t, not internationally I don’t. The more worrying thing, apart from all that, I think he’s mad not to have taken Brandt away, but you know, it’s up to him, is the midfield, which has got Rice gets one big kick, who’s supposed to tackle for the ball in that midfield? 

They haven’t got anybody. 

Andy: I haven’t even looked at the England squad. Who’s the midfield then after Rice? Because I know Grealish isn’t going, is he? 

Paul: No, Alexander-Arnold, obviously. Bellingham, Connor Callagher from Chelsea. What’s the United kid Mainoo? Declan Rice, this is from memory. Adam Wilson from Palace. Palace have got four in the squad, haven’t they? 

Paul: They’ve got the most of all the teams. 

George: And Anthony Gordon’s there as well. 

Andy: I think Gordon’s probably deserved his selection actually on the season he’s had at Newcastle. Why not? I don’t mind. Yeah. 

George: But there’s no chapter in midfield, Andy. 

Andy: And I’ve no problem with Mainoo from United, he does look like a genuine deal, but I’m glad I’m not massively invested in Euros to be honest. I might or might not watch any of it. 

George: This is like some gigantic strip show. For goodness sake, get your clothes off and talk about Everton. 

Paul: It’s just a warm -up, George. We’re waiting for the main episode, right? 

George: I’m getting on my nerves. 

Paul: You’re the stage manager and you’re looking around for the main act, where are you? 

Andy: This support, this support, I’m just dying. 

Paul: Well at least we haven’t lost in the last week, that’s the main point about everything I suppose. 

George: Oh, will you start with this? Just tell us what’s going on now. 

Paul: All right, okay, so I mean, although we say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, we’re recording this Saturday evening UK time, early evening UK time. Probably the story might have been a little different a couple of days ago because there is an expectation that Moshiri would finally agree on who was likely to be the next buyer and that was a combination of two local businessmen, George Downing and Andy Bell, another George and Andy combination, not quite as wealthy as ours but nearly quite as wealthy as ours but there we go. 

Paul: So yeah, George Downing, Andy Bell and a company called MSD which is effectively the company that manages all of Michael Dell’s wealth. So Michael Dell, the guy that created Dell Computing is worth depending upon what the share price is on a particular day anywhere between 90 and 100 billion dollars. 

Paul: He’s one George Downing who’s a property developer, probably worth around half a billion pounds, Liverpool based, Evanson supports all of his life, very very good solid guy, well known. I mean, he’s actually very low profile but he’s well known amongst Evertonians, well respected and then Andy Bell who’s slightly higher profile has run a basically a stock broking platform most of his career. 

Paul: He’s an actuary by trade, he’s done extraordinarily well as well, it’s a quoted company on the London Stock Exchange and of course both he and George have put 50 million pound into the club already and they did that just over a year ago, well actually just over a year ago at the end of May 2023 and they’ve come together with MSD and they’ve put a proposal in to Moshiri and the expectation was that that proposal would have been accepted or at least it would have been given prior rights as against any other proposal but as is often the case with Moshiri, it doesn’t necessarily quite go to plan or what the expected plan was and Moshiri is still entertaining offers from other people and he’s engaged a company that he’s used previously, a company called Deloitte which many people will have heard of, they’re a global consultancy firm but they’re also an investment bank that specialises in sports investment and they’ve been trying to flog everything around the world to any investor that’s interested. 

George: You mean, we’re not sold, we’ve not been bought? 

Paul: Um, well, as of this particular moment in time, no. 

Andy: Right, because I know where our kids are coming from. With the social media stuff that was coming out yesterday and reports in various newspapers and whatnot, it was given the impression that perhaps the deal had been done and was just waiting for eyes to be dotted, teeth to be crossed and somebody to get in front of a microphone and camera and announce it. 

Paul: Yeah and as I say if we’d done this podcast a couple of days ago I would have agreed with all of that or said you know it was very likely to happen within the next sort of 24 hours or so and the fact is that it hasn’t and it’s still open to other offers. 

Paul: I think at the end of the day 

George: Oh my God. 

Paul: I think at the end of the day, and I’m happy to go into more detail on this, it is the best offer for the football club, by a long stretch, and I think it will be the best offer of  five. 

George: But we have to wait until he comes to that conclusion. 

Paul: Yeah, and the one thing that works in everybody’s favour in this is that Moshiri can’t really afford to wait. You can’t drag this out much longer. The football club is OK this month. It has some hefty bills to pay this month, as we talked about, I think, on the last podcast. 

Paul: We’re able to do that as long as we sell some players before the end of the month. And I know the club will deny that, but obviously they will deny that because they’re in a selling position. 

Paul: But beyond that, you know, we need new investors because Moshiri is not going to put any more money in, 777 can’t put any more money in. A-Cap, the US insurance company, that has taken over 777’s debt because they’re effectively taking over 777, and they can’t put any more money in because they’re in what’s called Supervisory Administration in the US, which means that a supervisor has to agree to any any new investment. 

Paul: And that supervisor has said, under no circumstances can A-Cap provide Everton or indeed any other football club within the 777 portfolio any more money. 

Andy: All right. um that’s surely that’s surely ringing alarm bells round Vasco de Gama and Berlin and whatever else 777, Genoa and what have you that must be they must be standardly aged they must be uh 

Paul: Yeah, very much so. We think we’re in a difficult position. All of the clubs within the 777 portfolio are in a terrible position. I shared some figures the other day with a few people as to what the liabilities were around the 777 group in terms of football clubs. 

Paul: And if you compare the liabilities to the assets that are available to them, you know, it looks really bad. And the one thing that, oh, and you know, we’ve said this, or I’ve said it rather, on many occasions, the one thing that always stands out with the 777 companies is actually how short of cash they are. 

Paul: And ultimately, businesses fail when they run out of cash. And 777 have always relied upon either borrowing more, or relied on A-Cap, who, you know, is an associated insurance company in the US, to provide them with more funding. 

Paul: But because A-Cap are now in a supervisory administration, they’re not in a position to do so. Having said that, it’s quite interesting that several of the media, including Sky Sports, reported that A-Cap were potential bidders for Everton. 

Paul: I can say categorically, absolutely categorically, that they are not bidders for Everton in any sense. They don’t have the funds. Well, they have the funds, but they don’t have the ability to invest those funds because they are in supervisory administration. 

Andy: So, have we any idea who these other alleged parties are that Machiri is still prepared to talk with? 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, one of them, I think we’ve talked about it last week, one of them is Textor, John Textor, the guy who owns 45% of Crystal Palace. 

Andy: right? He’s now 

Paul: ruled himself out. But again, you know, the media yesterday and even this morning, we’re still talking about him. And I think some of that is driven by either Moshiri’s PR company, or by Deloitte’s PR company, because they’re trying to create as much interest as possible. 

Andy: I’m trying to create a bidding war. 

Paul: Yeah, but Textor can’t do anything about it because he just can’t sell his Crystal Palace shares. As we said last week, they’ve been on sale for more than 12 months and without selling them, he can’t even look at everything. 

Paul: So they’re now to the equation. Interestingly, there’s a number of people that are saying that the company that’s already loaned Everton money and the company that was quite close to George Downing and Andy Bell, MSP, are interested in making a bid. 

Paul: But again, that to me runs completely contrary to everything that they’ve said in the more than 12 months that they’ve been involved with Everton Football Club. If you cast your mind back to last summer, one of the issues with MSP was that they wouldn’t commit more money. 

Paul: And that was one of the reasons why Rights & Media Funding, one of Everton’s big lenders, said no to them taking an equity stake in Everton. So again, you know, quoted in the media, if you go and search the newspapers, search online, Sky News in particular, they will tell you that these people are all vying for an opportunity to buy Everton, but it’s very, very easy to discount them. 

Paul: And then the final group, which was mentioned today, was, again, a very wealthy family, a family by the name of Friedkin, who already own Khan in France, and they own Roma, obviously, in Italy, that they would be interested in buying Everton Football Club. 

Paul: They’ve probably got the resources to do so, but I’m told, and I was told this afternoon, that because UEFA is now starting to look very closely at the multi club operations, that there’s little point in them buying Everton if, let’s say, they bought Everton and Everton became successful once more. 

Paul: It may be the case that multi club clubs won’t be able to compete together in European competitions going forward. And they’re quite concerned about that, because they’re concerned about the drop in value in those clubs. 

Paul: And they’re heavily committed to Roma, they’ve spent a lot of money on Roma. And obviously, Roma are already regulars in European competition. So to buy Everton would seem to be counterintuitive and counterproductive. 

Paul: So after that, you really don’t, there isn’t anybody else. So we’re back to Bell and Downing and MSD. So whilst the news hasn’t developed as quickly as we hoped it might, and as quickly as I may have indicated earlier in the week, they really remain the only game in town. 

George: that this is at the whim of Farhad Moshiri. 

Paul: He can essentially sell to or he can agree to sell to whomever he wants and whilst you know as we’ve discussed the club has enough money at the moment to see itself through predicated on the idea that we sell players at the beginning of the transfer window Moshiri might argue, I don’t agree with him, but he might argue that actually he doesn’t have a reason to sell at this particular moment in time. 

Paul: I don’t agree with that and I think he’s just trying to extract as much as he can out of a really difficult position for him but nevertheless you know Moshiri has always been a difficult character and he’s been a difficult character to call. 

Paul: Having said all of that in the absence of somebody else coming along then the deal is going to be Bell and Downing plus MSD and that and I know a lot of people accuse me of you know being in the pay of like different groups. 

Paul: I’m not, I happen to know each of these guys but I’m not in the pay of them by any stretch of imagination and these guys are the right guys to buy everything football club and you know there’s very good reason for saying that and I’m happy to go through each of the reasons if you two and other people want me to do so. 

George: I’m kind of more interested in what Moshiri’s thinking really. I know you don’t know that. You can’t know that. No, certainly not. 

Andy: But on the assumption that Moshiri is no longer prepared to finance Everton football club, and that there is an offer on the table from. George Downing and Andy Bell and MSD. Surely his advisers, Moshiri’s advisers. 

Andy: And I mean, we have to assume he’s got his advisers, he’s not just a one man band. Yeah, they’ve got this company Deloitte. Right. So you wouldn’t would it not be reasonable to suggest that Deloitte would be knocking on his door and saying, Mr. 

Andy: Moshiri, we are advising you as your contracted advisers to take this offer sooner rather than later. Because otherwise some of the bills that are going to come out of his way are going to come your way and you don’t want to continue to finance every football club. 

Andy: Otherwise, you wouldn’t have put the club up for sale in the first place. 

Paul: I think that’s what most people would say to most normal investors. I think it’s fairly well established now that Farhad Moshiri doesn’t operate as a normal investor. He tends to operate almost as a gambler would operate in the sense that he’s prepared to take risks that normal investors wouldn’t do. 

Paul: Maybe the risk he’s taking here is, well, he thinks he can extract more value out of the deal.  

George: When you say extract more value, do you mean claw back as much of the money that he’s pissed up a wall as he can? 

Paul: Yes, so he spent, by my reckoning, about £880 million over the, well, since 2016, so over the eight years that he’s owned Everton, £750 million went into the club and £130 million went to pay the shareholders that he bought shares from. 

Paul: So the likes of John Woods, the likes of Bill Kenwright, etc., etc. So £850 to £900 million. It’s around £880 million, OK? What does he get back from that? Well, the way it is at the moment, he’s got, he owns 94 .1% of the shares and because he’s converted some of the debt into shares, he’s got £450 million of outstanding loans that effectively the club owe him. 

Paul: There’s no agreement as to when that needs to be paid back, but it still is a loan. So in theory, that loan should be paid back at some point. No investor that’s coming into this is going to pay a single penny of those loans back to him. 

Paul: So that £450 million is lost completely. The question is, what do they pay for the 94.1% of Everton that Farhad Moshiri owns? His argument, and I’m just being very open here, I don’t agree with it, but his argument is that we’ve got a stadium that I’ve, you know, I being Farhad Moshiri for a second, that I’ve spent £760 million on, which is roughly the cost of the stadium to date. 

Paul: If, if we were to start building the stadium today, how much would it cost us to build it? Well, it wouldn’t cost us £760 million. It would cost us probably more than a billion pounds. Therefore, that has to be reflected in the value of the club. 

Paul: So that’s his, that’s his argument. The counter argument to that is, well, if the stadium was to cost a billion, let’s just call it a billion. If the stadium was to cost a billion pounds today, nobody in their right mind would build a stadium for a billion pounds. 

Paul: Because the return on the stadium just doesn’t warrant the expenditure. So the idea that you can reflect that value in the value of Everton Football Club is entirely wrong. The other point you’ve then got to consider is, well, how much debt does Everton have? 

Paul: And Everton has, as is well -established, very close to £600 million worth of external debt that, you know, is attracting interest. And it’s, it’s difficult to say precisely, but it’s thought that it’s probably costing around 10% per annum. 

Paul: So 10% a year on that, that means we’re paying more than a million pounds a week in interest payments, or we’re accumulating interest debt at a million pounds a week. And that has to be reflected in the price because a new investor coming in is going to have to pay down a considerable amount of that debt. 

Paul: So the club is not worth anything like what Moshori is claiming it’s worth. And even 777, who were offering some much higher than anybody else was prepared to offer, was only going to offer him £64 million to begin with. 

Paul: It might have gone up had, you know, Everton performed better in the years ahead, but it was £64 million in cash. I don’t think anybody at this moment in time would offer anything like that for Everton Football Club. 

Paul: 777 offered it because, you know, frankly, it wasn’t their money. It was the insurance company’s money. So it didn’t really matter to them to a degree what they were prepared to offer. They were prepared to offer a bit more because it wasn’t actually coming out of their pockets. 

Paul: Investors like Bell Downing, MSD, or indeed anybody else, who are actually spending their own money as opposed to spending somebody else’s money. just look at everything and say you know what really this club is what it’s not worth anything despite the fact that there’s a new stadium, because the stadium still has to be completed in terms of both the build but also in terms of payments and the amount of debt that the club has is a consideration and the amount of money that needs to be spent to make the squad competitive again.

Because we’ve got a very weak squad we don’t have a an academy whereby you know there’s half a dozen players that can come into the first team squad in the next couple of years because that’s just totally unrealistic that’s not going to happen whoever comes in is going to have to spend a considerable amount of money on getting the squad back to a competitive level within the Premier League regardless of who the manager is whether it’s Dyche or somebody else that money is going to have to be spent and that ultimately has to be reflected in the cost of the in the cost of the club i .e. 

Paul: what just fired Moshiri gets out of this and he is trying his level best to get as much as possible like any any seller would but frankly there’s no justification for anything even approaching what 777 were going to get in the first instance sorry that was a long speech 

George: and I enjoyed the magnum while you did it. 

Paul: I hope it was a big Magnum, not a Magnum Mini. 

George: No, I’m off the Mini Magnum I’m off the minimap, so we’re back to a waiting game again. 

Paul: Well, yeah, but I think the waiting period, George, is very, very short because I think Moshiri has to act in order to, A, he doesn’t have to find any more money at the end of this month, and B, the lenders themselves will be getting concerned about his inability to close the sale of the club. 

Paul: So whilst, for example, Rights & Media Funding are currently supportive, I’m not sure how long they will be supportive for if they don’t see Moshiri being serious about selling the club. Equally, MSP, they want repaying, and if they don’t get repaid, then they either have the right to acquire the club or part of the club, or they’ll take the club to administration, which I don’t think they will do, but that’s still an option. 

Paul: And in that case, Moshiri then gets nothing. So Moshiri is, to use the expression I used a little bit earlier, he’s gambling here. This is not the thought process of 

Andy: Sounds like he’s backed himself into a corner here. Well. 

Paul: I mean he’s been painting himself into an increasingly small corner for years and he’s just continuing to do exactly the same. 

George: Is this pride? I mean, you know, I went with eight years of him running something that, you know, we’re all passionate about. I know nothing about the man. Well, what’s what’s motivating his character? 

George: Is he just not very good at his gig or I don’t I don’t. I can’t see. I can’t I can’t see his game plan. 

Paul: So despite the media reports with regards to what his wealth might be, and you know they sort of fluctuate between 1 .6 billion and more than 2 billion depending upon who you speak to, most of that wealth is tied up in either USM or Russian related assets that he can’t access because of, quite rightly because of the sanctions that are applied to Russia because of their invasion of Ukraine. 

Paul: So it’s pretty certain that he has a liquidity issue so you know he doesn’t have the levels of cash that he used to have or access to that cash which is probably more accurate. So he is in a position where he has to sell and when he does sell he has explained he’s not going to get anything like the money that he’s put in. 

Paul: So when he does sell it’s going to have a significant effect on his net worth and it might have a significant effect on other people’s net worth, i.e. people who have backed him. 

George: Right. 

Andy: When you say people are back to you talking about the name, everyone always throws up. 

Paul: Well, some people, some people say that it’s, you know, and there are recognized journalists out there that will openly say it’s, you know, there’s evidence to suggest that it’s not his money. Right. 

Paul: I’ve always said it is his money. But other people say it may not be. And everybody has to be extraordinarily careful about what they do say. Sure. On this point. But, you know, regardless, somebody’s going to lose an awful lot of money when he actually does sell everything. 

Paul: But the reality of it is, is, have you not made all of these terrible decisions over the years, both from a footballing point of view, from a commercial point of view, from the stadium perspective, how he funded the stadium, which funders he used, all of the contributory factors that, you know, I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words on and other people have as well. 

Paul: Had he not done or made all of those bad decisions, he wouldn’t be in a position he’s in now. 

Paul: And our concern as Evertonians has to be, frankly, has to be what’s best for the club going forward. Yeah, absolutely. It’s no longer a question of, you know, we should have some consideration for, excuse me, for Moshiri’s position, because frankly, those days have gone. 

George: Yeah, I’d be astonished if there were too many people going, oh yeah, but what about poor old Farhad? 

Paul: I think there’s, I think other than people with a surname, Moshiri is probably very few. But that doesn’t solve the problems that the club has. And, you know, the club needs new investment. We know that. 

Paul: And the club needs to be able to refinance the stadium. We know that. But above all else, the club needs people to come in who know what they’re doing, know how to run a football club, know how to run a business, have got a plan in terms of how to develop the area around Bramley More to the benefit of the football club, not to the benefits of other property developers, and how to exploit what is still an amazing opportunity for Everson Football Club to move into Bramley-Moore and to be the lynchpin of the redevelopment in that surrounding area. 

Paul: And if they do that, and they do it successfully, then not only do Everson benefits and Everton shareholders benefit, but the investors around it benefit, and most importantly, the city of Liverpool benefits and all of the economic benefits that come with it. 

Paul: And this is actually another factor. Sorry, I know I’m talking a lot, but this is another factor in terms of timing. We’re going to have a change of government in, what, just less, well, in four weeks’ time. 

Paul: I think almost everybody, regardless of what your political opinion is, has to acknowledge that. One of the things that a new Labour government will do is that they will provide funds for investment for economic development opportunities. 

Paul: And, for example, in the city of London, sorry, not the city, but in London itself, you know, various councils around London are already putting forward Labour-controlled councils, putting forward investment plans. 

Paul: It says, when a Labour government comes in, these are the development opportunities, and it will be a combination of private money and a combination of public money, but we will do this in order to generate more economic growth than we’ve had previously. 

Paul: So they will do that. I think under Andy Burnham, Manchester is in a similar position where they have plans to use a Labour government as a means of generating more investment and more redevelopment opportunities, more economic growth opportunities. 

Paul: And it’s really important, and I’ve spoken to several politicians nationally and locally in Liverpool, and they all agree that it’s really important that Everton Football Club and the city of Liverpool are at the top of that list. 

Paul: So the incoming government is not going to have unlimited amounts of cash. I think everybody knows that. And they’re going to have to prioritise what investment cash they do have. 

George: Right. 

Paul: And Liverpool has to grab its fair share of that and the best opportunity that Liverpool has to grab that share is the redevelopment of the northern docks and the redevelopment of the surrounding area, the Ten Streets development, for example, which. 

George: Are you suggesting, Paul, that if Moshiri sits on his hands much longer, he could screw that up? 

Paul: It won’t, it won’t help matters. Absolutely will not help matters. And actually, in the last podcast, George, we talked about it, didn’t we? And you expressed astonishment with the idea that public money could be used. 

Paul: It’s not public money per se for the football club, but it’s public money for redevelopment in the area. And that redevelopment helps the football club because it increases the value of the land that the stadium is on and increases the opportunities for Everton’s commercial developments, because the more development development there is around the club, the more attractive the football club becomes to commercial partners, you know, hoteliers, conference centres, concerts, et cetera, et cetera. 

Paul: All of the things that Everton have never been able to exploit at Goodison. And unless there’s infrastructure developments around Bramley Moore, we’ll find it very difficult to exploit at Bramley-Moore. 

Paul: So there’s a really big timing issue with this. And, you know, we, Everton football club and the city of Liverpool have to be really alert to this and really in a position where they do something about it. 

Paul: And on the first day of a Labour government, you know, they have a plan that they can slap on Keir Starmer’s desk and say whatever money is available, we need our share of it because otherwise it will go somewhere else. 

George: Right? Well… 

Andy: so this everything well everything’s going to come to a head death inside the next four weeks if not sooner isn’t it because as you said we’ve got the election in on the fourth of July 

Paul: Yes, and we’ve also got the process to go through with the Premier League, which yeah You know, I think in the case of Bell, Downing and MSD would be much shorter than You know the process would should have been even with 777. It’d be more akin to the process for Jim Ratcliffe at Manchester United in terms of timing because these are all credible people with nothing really to hide and have demonstrable wealth and can meet all of the requirements of the fit and proper owners test.

 But it’ll still take, you know Four six eight weeks so it’s really it is critical that Moshiri stops and I’m gonna be polite and say dilly-dallying around and gets on with it and allows proper serious business people to come in, recruit really good people who can run the football club and they as the investors can get on with all of the other stuff that is going to make the football club a success 

To not do that we’re just wasting time 

Andy: And is no friend to anybody. 

Paul: No, and it’s of no benefit at all to the football club. Moshiri might argue it’s of a benefit to him, because he’s holding out for the highest possible price. But that doesn’t help us. We have to move on, and we have to move on as quickly as we possibly can. 

Paul: I can’t make it any clearer than that. 

George: But, you know, if I was Farhad Moshiri listening to this, I’d say tough tits. I’ve put all this cash in. You’ve done nothing but snipe from the sidelines all my life. It’ll go when I say and not before. 

Andy: Yeah, and that’s possible. 

George: If he thinks, you know, and I don’t know what, you know, I’ve got no sense of the man’s mindset at all. But if he thinks, and screw the North, you know, that area of Liverpool. So what? I’m sick to death of Liverpool and the whole damn thing. 

George: I don’t I just you just don’t know, because, because he’s played his cards very close to his chest, even though you’re suggesting that, you know, he’s a very poor gambler. 

Paul: It is interesting because a couple of people have said to me in the last week and most people know my opinions of Farhad Moshiri, including Moshiri himself knows my opinions, that he actually does care about the club and he recognises the importance of the club to the city and he recognises the importance of the club to the fan base and the contribution that the fan base make to the city and make to the club. 

Paul: Wow, okay. Which is great and you say fantastic Farhad, thank you very much Mr Moshiri, however you want to address him. Demonstrate to us now how much truth there is in that statement by doing what you need to do in order for us to move on. 

Paul: There is a legacy element to this at the end of the day, that his legacy could be the stadium at Bramley-Moore but unless it’s done properly, unless it’s done in a timely manner and unless the right people buy the football club moving forwards, that legacy would always be tarnished. 

Paul: He can still recover quite a bit of his legacy if he acts properly and if he acts in a timely manner which means doing stuff without delay. 

George: You have been banging that drum for quite some time, my man. 

Paul: Well, yeah. 

George: Now, I understand why I’m not criticizing any kind, but I’m a bit shocked. I thought this wasn’t going to be this podcast at all. But it’s just one more on the endless trail of when does this saga come to an end? 

George: And now the clock, you know, all I’m getting from this is that clock is ticking even louder, obviously, than it was a week ago, a month ago, six months ago. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Andy: It’s potentially ticking quicker as well because if certain other interested parties, and I don’t mean buyers, I mean the creditors, have got anything like a short fuse, the last thing we need is those fuses being lit. 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, being, being in, you know, trying to be entirely objective. There’s no indication that the creditors….

Andy: I’m not suggesting for one minute that there is Paul, I’m not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that if Mr Moshiri does continue to prevaricate, then surely he’s testing their patience. 

Paul: Yeah, but then that goes back to the whole thing about gambling. 

George: Yeah, I’m going to say that that’s the boss, surely. 

Andy: of wow a secular buzz when when when one outcome is he gets absolutely zilch as against getting something that’s because there’s a phrase in there that 100% and 100% of sod all is sod all 

George: Mm -hmm. 

Andy: And you can replace SOD with any other vernacular you want. 

George: We just did, Andy. 

Andy: I thought you did, yeah. I felt it come through the airwaves, bro. 

George: Um, wow, okay. 

Paul: In my opinion, we can move forward, we just need to get Moshiri’s in to allow us to move forward. 

George: All right, well, next week. 

Andy: Over to you Farhad. 

George: It’s like the Archers, isn’t it? 

Andy: Well, so what else is new? 

Paul: I don’t think there is anything else. 

George: Now. 

Paul: sort of hoping it might have been a bit of a celebration today, but… 

George: Yeah, sorry, I’ve been paying attention. I’ve, you know, read an article yesterday and thought, Oh, whoopee, can’t wait. And the sort of smart cynic that is my wife looked up at the dinner table and went, What have the club said? 

Andy: Yeah. 

Paul: Sorry, I said it all already, so don’t need to repeat it. 

George: You’ll be repeating it next week, Paul. I hope you’re not. 

Paul: I really, I really hope not. And there’s so many people working so hard to try and ensure that it’s not the case. 

George: of course champagne on ice and fingers crossed. 

Paul: Oh my God. It will taste even sweeter. 

George: Of course it will. Yeah. 

Paul: Well, there you go, drones to a silence. 

Andy: Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m lost for words now. 

George: There’s nothing else to say if they can go back to football and say that we flagged off the defence that Southgate’s picked and the midfield, actually the forward line, the options he’s got in the forward line are fantastic. 

George: Quite fantastic and they’re almost a recipe for a team that goes right attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, will score more goals than you. Then they go out and they can’t get one against Iceland, they have one shot on target and just to remind everybody that this is football. 

George: Anyway. 

George: next week. Paul, what can we say next week? 

Paul: Yeah, we need to get together, and hopefully we can get together beforehand with a, uh… 

Andy: just going to say possibly sooner if common sense prevails or business sense prevails. 

Paul: Let’s hope so. Yeah. Yeah. 

George: All right. 

Paul: Do you believe that? 

George: Yeah, yeah, I think we go 

Andy: Well thank you for illuminating us on what’s occurring because like I said from the repressed reports yesterday and the social media reports, I think it’s fair to say that many of the fans were under the impression that things were pretty much done and dusted. 

George: Yeah, this one was. 

Paul: Yeah, very much so. And, you know, I tweeted yesterday that I thought it was massively encouraging the news and, you know, I still feel more confident about our future today than I did have done any time in an awful long time, just frustrated that the timing of it hasn’t quite worked to the extent that we wanted it to. 

Paul: But that’s not to say it won’t, you know, and things will change very, very quickly. So I still believe that the offer that’s on the table will be the offer that’s taken. 

Andy: We might be back in an hour. Let me have my chair and we’ll reconvene. 

George: I’ll have another magnum. 

Paul: But you might have to nip out to the supermarket and get some more George. 

George: Yeah, I get some champagne as well. Have a good break, guys. 

Paul: Yes. All right. And again, obviously, everybody, thanks for listening, and hopefully we’ll speak to you very soon with slightly different news. 

Andy: Fingers crossed, big time. 

George: Yeah. 

Andy: Cheers everybody. 

Paul: Cheers. Bye now.