Welcome to the transcript of the Talking the Blues Podcast recorded on Wednesday 31st July 2024. Thanks as always for reading or listening:

Paul: Good morning, good afternoon or good evening depending upon where in the world you are and what time in the day you’re listening to this episode of Talking the Blues. George and Andy, uh, Everton got sent to Coventry last night and came back with nothing. 

Andy: I’m afraid so. 

Paul: Oh, you both first, before we get into the… 

George: I wish he’d asked us that at seven O’clock last night because having watched that, depression is the blues, you know, I mean it’s just absolutely shambolic. Apart from the guy whose name Andy can pronounce, what’s his name Andy? 

Andy: Iroegbunan 

George: Tim. It sounds like somebody farting in Arabic. He was really good. He’s got pace and he’s got attitude. And so was the other guy in Ndiaye who was interesting, you know, until he hooked him. The rest of it was absolutely awful, completely awful, really depressing. 

George: No fight, no shape, no nothing. The oldest back four since Maldini and Berezi retired, just dreadful, absolutely dreadful. 

Andy: I suppose we have to balance it by saying that it’s pre -season and all the usual excuses like Coventry are a week ahead of us because their season starts a week before us and we’ve still got a number of players out resting after the Euros and still carrying the odd injury and what have you but in general terms I mean we’ve played three pre -season friendlies now we’ve drawn three -three with Sligo Rovers was lost at Salford and to be quite honest we did we got trumped last night because it could have been four or five. 

Andy: Virginia made a couple of decent saves in the second half alone, one from a free kick. The worrying thing for me was there was no invention, there was no guile and absolutely nothing up front from either DCL or Beto when he came on and that’s a real worry. 

Andy: I know it’s pre -season we’ve still got a couple of weeks to go, we’ve got Preston on Saturday and then Roma at Goodison. 

George: We are playing Roma, are we? 

Andy: Well, it’s on the fixture list. Yeah. Right. But I mean, I don’t think I don’t think we had a decent attempt on targets. I can’t I can’t remember the Coventry goal in making a save 

George: He saved twice from DCL. 

Andy: Oh, okay. 

George: DCL. I mean, it was just honestly, Paul, it was horrible and anybody listening to this, you went there last night, you’ve got nothing but my deepest sympathy. That must have been so shameful to go to a pre -season friendly against a team, a division below you and get absolutely walloped. 

They were shoddy. I’m trying to back my tongue here, but thank you. 

Andy: I think we do have to give Coventry some praise, I mean yes they are, because their season starts early, but they look to cohesive unit and the most embarrassing thing from an Everton point of view was Mark Robbins made about seven or eight changes in the second half and every single one of them slotted in perfectly for the guy that they replaced. 

It was a seamless transition from one bunch of players to another bunch of players and they just carried on going. We brought the core on and ostensibly to play off DCL or whatever and I don’t know what he ended up doing. 

I’d almost lost the will to watch the final ten minutes but I was glad I did because they explored a pitch in the third goal. So you have to give Coventry a lot of credit I think. 

George: and Salford. 

Andy: Well, yes, often, you know, a goal down with 20 to play and they won’t turn it round, but it just, you know, taking the whole, it’s pre -season, don’t get too worked up about it, it’s all about getting fitness, getting the fitness levels ready, you know, to hit the ground running against Brighton. 

If that is the case, then on what we saw last night, they’ve still got an awful lot of work to do. And they’ll desperately need, you know, the main players at the back, you know, Tarkovsky, Branthwaite, Mykolenko and obviously Pickford between the sticks. 

George: And what do we think, just to get off talking about that last night, because it was really horrible, what do we think is going on with Branthwaite? Is he going to stay now? 

Andy: No idea. I hope so. 

Paul: Yeah, I’m not I’m not sure he can stay really with, you know, the situation, as I wrote about today, with regards to the football club, and the prospect of us being sold, which is, you know, minimal in the short term, or even in the in the medium term, possibly, I, I think, I think that, you know, I’m going to go to great lengths to, to explain that. 

Currently, we don’t have an issue with regards to cash, you know, we’re okay for cash at the moment. But that’s not going to be the case. Well, that’s not going to be the case by the beginning of the new year. 

So 2025. Because, you know, we’ve still got bits, still got quite a bit on the stadium to pay, we still are cash negative on a monthly basis. So we’re still spending more, even though our costs have come down considerably, we’re still spending more than our revenues. 

So we are going to have to find cash at some point. And I just because we don’t know when the sale or when a sale, not the sale, when a sale is going to happen. And because there’s no surety about our ability or willingness to fund anything that the club needs between now and say, December, the end of December. 

I think the temptation will be too great, not to sell, you know, not to have at least one significant sale between now and the end of the window. 

George: Right, and we’ll just put the centre off. 

Paul: I’m, well, yes. So what? I mean, that’s, that’s just how I see it. Sorry, I don’t want to sound massive. I’m not depressed, but that’s just how I see it. And, you know, if, if we get to the end of the window and Branthwaite is still an Everton player, then hats off to him and hats off to the club for finding a way of keeping him. 

But personally, and, you know, this is only my opinion, personally, I can’t see that being a realistic prospect. Right. For a whole raft of reasons, financial is only one of them. 

George: I read a thing today that said he was kind of holding the club to ransom that he’d been offered £160,000 a week by Man United. And he was saying to have it match that and I’ll stay. How much is he being paid at the moment? 

Do we know? 

Andy: The thing before you get into what he’s currently being paid and what he’s allegedly been offered by United and allegedly telling the club to match it, he’s on a contract. So Everton hold the cards here. 

It’s like when Lukaku went, we didn’t have to sell Lukaku, we could have played hardball and kept him. So, whether United have or have not offered him 160 grand a week or more or less or whatever, it’s actually neither end of the day at this many times. 

He can’t demand Everton increase his wages to match that because he’s already agreed on his contract. Now, he could say, I’m not going to play and then go and shine the pine or play in the reserves, which wouldn’t be a particularly spectacularly clever career move on his behalf. 

And he doesn’t strike me, not that I know him, but he didn’t strike me as a knucklehead who’s going to do something like that. But I think some of these alleged media reports about what United are doing and they’re not doing should be taken with an enormous pinch of salt and flushed down the cars. 

Because the club does hold the whip hand at the moment, if that’s the right phrase. I suppose it depends whether Branthwaite actually says to the club, I want to leave for the sake of my career and whatnot, I don’t see a longer term future there than football club. 

That might happen. That could force the issue. But I don’t think at this minute in time he can turn around to the club and say that this mythical offer from Man United is ongoing because they can say, well, you can go all you want until we release your paper with it. 

You’re going nowhere, pal. Yeah. Yeah. 

George: and to be fair, even though- 

Paul: Sorry, George. 

George: No, no, nothing. Go on, Paul. 

Paul: No, I was just going to say, to be fair, he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who would go to those lengths in order to extract more money out of Everton Football Club. You know, at the end of the day, we’re talking about a relatively small sum of money compared with what he’s going to earn in his career. 

And no doubt will earn considerably more, you know, as his career develops and as he plays for teams in the Champions League, etc. So the idea that somebody who is already, by most people’s standards, extraordinarily wealthy for his age, he’s going to try and hold the club to ransom. 

Doesn’t really sit with my understanding of the type of person that he is and also the type of person that the people who represent him are. So, you know, I think the media and certainly certain elements of the media, and particularly in relation to Manchester United’s stories, are always ready to throw these things into the pot because it gets people talking and, you know, it’s clickbait and it generates advertising revenue and interest in what would otherwise be a non-story. 

And I think that’s where we are. That doesn’t mean to say that I’m reigning back on my view that he won’t necessarily be an Everton player at the beginning of the season. It’s just what is currently reported just seems well, it’s just made up as far as I’m concerned. 

I don’t think there’s any substance to it. And if whoever the journalist is that wrote it, if they’re listening and they want to come back and challenge that view, then please do, because I’m not sure you can. 

Andy: yeah you scurrilous Manc bugger, he says bite in his tongue 

Paul: You had your fingers crossed there, Andy. Yeah. But, you know, I didn’t I didn’t watch last night’s match. And, you know, we were saying, oh, well, it’s ridiculous. You know, you run a podcast this, that and the other. 

You’re never telling. And why didn’t you watch it? Well, one, I can’t get too excited about preseason games, because the ones that I’ve always seen, I’ve seldom seen a decent game. And to me, football isn’t football unless there’s a competitive element to it. 

So I enjoy football because of the competitive elements. Not because of football, per se, or at least teams of the quality of Everton and or Coventry, even if Coventry did play well. I think if I was going to watch football just for the sake of watching football, I’d want to watch much better teams in both of them. 

And that may sound like sacrilege for an Evertonian to say that. But it’s the truth. And how can I put it? A Dyche team missing some of our better players isn’t going to get me to change what’s become a habit over many years of not watching preseason friendlies. 

Andy: Mm. 

Paul: I have planned. 

Andy: Yeah, go ahead. 

Paul: I’m happy to read about them, I’m happy to think about them and to maybe make suggestions as to why certain things have happened, but actually watching it is, well, like I’ve said it all. 

Andy: All right, let’s move on from conversation. 

Paul: If we were guaranteed to play like Barcelona or whoever the best team in the world is at this moment in time, then I might tune in, but we’re not, and there’s no wasting time getting frustrated, wishing things were better than they were. 

When they’re not, so long as Sean Dyche prepares the team physically and does his best in terms of preparation for the season, then when the real stuff starts, then I’ll go back to being a full -blooded match-watching Evertonian. 

Andy: Yeah, that’s right. At the end of the day, you want to win the games, but as we said before, the pre -season is all about, I guess, getting match fit and getting ready for the real stuff, which begins with Brighton. 

If they come out and play a completely different game to what we saw last night, then fantastic. If they come out and play like they did last night, deep doo -doo. 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, the worry is, of course, that, you know, poor form and in pre-season sets, sets, sets a pattern and establishes a way of playing which, you know, knowing Sean Dyche is probably not going to be that different from how we’ve played in previous years. 

And, you know, whether or not, and suppose this is a much bigger discussion, but whether or not Sean Dyche shouldn’t have developed his approach to football more over the years, we gave him lots of praise for doing what he did last year, which is entirely pragmatic and, you know, kept us up very comfortably despite, you know, the penalty point situation. 

But the flip side of that coin is, whilst Dyche, I think, has successfully helped individual players become better players, has he actually ever made a team, a better team from the point when he started managing them to the point where he finished managing them? 

And I can’t hand on heart and there are other people better qualified than me to say whether this is true or not. I suspect it’s not true. And I think that’s one of his limitations. You know, he is pragmatic and he does work well with limited resources, but is he going to make that team any better or is he just going to make that team difficult to beat or less likely to get relegated than perhaps a more expansive manager might do? 

Andy: I don’t think we’ll be able to answer that call until a) the season starts, and b) the transfer window closes and we know exactly what squad he’s got to work with and then try and figure it out, you know, I mean, like I said before, we’re pretty much sure that the back four or five will be, but, you know, I mean, we’ve just signed this Lindstrom, the Danish midfielder, so that immediately begs the question, 

Where is he going to play and whose place is he going to take if he’s going to be a starter? Yeah. I think until the transfer window closes and we know who’s still here and or who’s not gone, I don’t think we’ll really be able to judge Sean Dyche on how he’s developing during his time as Everton manager with the players he’s got, because we need to see what his ideas of how he’s going to slot in these new guys that we’ve signed, 

you know, are they going to slot straight in or are they going to be on the bench and coming off the bench? We just don’t know, do we? I mean, it’s a wait and see situation, really. 

George: The one positive from last night was that both halves, he started two up front. Now, both of them, as it happened, did nothing. And Doucoure wandered backwards and just ended up taking the ball off the back four. 

It was absolutely bonkers. But, you know, he did start. He was playing 4-4-2 last night. So the question about Lindstrom, if Lindstrom was any good, is that you I’m afraid you have to sacrifice Harrison, who’s a mystery to me. 

George: He’s seemed like a neat football player who achieves nothing. At all. He’s no threat. He can play, but there’s no there’s no devil in him. There’s no mystery. There’s no there’s no even, you know, the most essential thing about somebody playing out wide. 

I’m going to push the ball past you and you’re not going to see me because I’ve got five yards on you. You can’t do that. It’s so I would imagine Lindstrom will slide into that position. I hope so anyway. 

But, you know, what you were saying about attitude Paul, that was terrible last night. Watching McNeil, of all people, have a really unpleasant evening, bitching and moaning and doing nothing. And that that was kind of he should be a bit ashamed of himself, really, for the effort he put in. 

He put as much effort in as people who came all the way to Coventry from perhaps from Liverpool and paid and then went home again. That’s God, sorry. And then there’s also a whole day back. 

Paul: Well, yeah, I mean, the one thought I did have about last night, George, was your relationship with Holgate. 

George: I really like to shout with Holgate, if he picks him, I’m not watching anymore, I can’t. I really started shouting, Holgate should tremble in his boots, I’m sure, some lard -ass who doesn’t like him, but he’s useless. 

And he’s just not at that level at all, no way. Simms made a monkey of him some poor times last night. Anyway, change the subject. 

Paul: Just before we change the subject, obviously moving on from Holgate, it is interesting and forgive me, I’ve not really thought much about this, but just whilst we’re talking about Sean Dyche, Sean Dyche would have finished the season going away on holiday, thinking that perhaps when he came back, everything would have new owners. 

George: Yep. 

Paul: know, expecting the Friedkin group to perhaps have completed their deal. And he, you know, he did have conversations with the Friedkin group before, before departing for his summer break. I wonder, sometimes you can only go to the well so many times, can’t you? 

And if he sees the prospect of, yet again, another year with difficulties at Everton financially, but also from an ownership point of view, that he sees the same board in place, and he sees Moshiri hanging on in there for a better result at some point in the future or, you know, a better financial reward for selling the club to somebody else. 

What exactly that does to somebody like Sean Dyche, who clearly has enhanced his reputation whilst at Everton, but must be at the point where he thinks, first of all, can I do this again with perhaps less resource than I had previously, and in a more competitive Premier League, which this season seems to be shaping up as? 

And secondly, do I really want to do it again? Because, frankly, there’s not a huge amount in it for me. I don’t know the answers to those questions. 

George: There was a moment last night when Coventry, Everton came out and played for about four minutes and then Coventry got hold of the game and back we went. So we were denying them space and all that stuff. 

And you thought, actually, is this whole team, this whole squad and the management team depressed? Because of exactly what you’ve just said, that was exactly what we’ve all felt and what I’m sure every Evertonian felt. 

When Dan Friedkin came in, he kind of went, oh, thank God for that. Thank God for it. And it’s gone. And it’s not possible, I think, that professional football players don’t know what’s going on or have some sense that things are not going right here. 

And, you know, any of them in a squad of 25 players, there’s got to be at least two or three of them. We’ve gone, no, have you not read what’s been going on? They looked at the books and they went, we’re not taking this on. 

And so, you know, what you’re saying, and I think you’re absolutely right, that for everybody at the club now, now that Friedkin’s gone, this is an uphill, a big uphill struggle. Yeah. 

Paul: Go on Andy, sorry. 

Andy: I’ll just say before when you said that at the minute to the best of your knowledge the club have not got any cash issues at the moment and there might be enough to see us to the new year, let’s just for argument’s sake say that we don’t sell somebody this window so we retain Branthwaite, we retain Pickford, we retain DCL and we retain everybody else and we maybe add one more maybe two more who knows but come January then and the turn of the year and the current cash reserves are dwindling shall we say we will have another transfer window where people will look to cherry pick offers for cheap as chips but what happens with regards to cash flow should we get to that stage and there is no potential new owner in the game good question how does the club continue in that instance 

Paul: Well, somebody has to find some money from somewhere is the simple answer. Who that is, is the more difficult question to answer. You know, I’ve mentioned and it doesn’t seem to have been picked up by many people that Moshiri was a recipient of around about twenty two and a half million when Friedkin came in initially and, you know, lent the money in order to remove the MSP and the Bell and the Downing loans, 

Paul: Moshiri was party to that transaction. And he did, you know, he did he was able to take some cash effectively out of the club. So I suppose one could always say, well, come on, Farhad, we know that you’ve put four hundred and fifty million in the past. 

And you’re going to have to help us out again. Well, you’re going to have to help yourself by helping us out again because you still own the club. So that’s a possibility. 

George: How far does 22 million go? 

Paul: Well, it would pay a month, maybe a little bit more of our normal expenses, maybe a month and a half, maybe six weeks. But you know what, if you then drop in whatever it is that we still have outstanding with regards to Bramley more, and that figure could be anywhere between 35 and 50 million still, then it doesn’t go very far. 

George: Um, okay. As I understood your article, I read this afternoon, because what the Friedkin group saw was that there’s because of the legal case about Leadenhall and A-Cap and 777. There’s no way of stabilizing evidence accounts until that court case is settled. 

George: Is that fair summation? 

Paul: I think it’s a partial summation, George and what you said is largely accurate. Of course, a new owner could just take the view that, well, we borrowed the money, therefore we choose to pay it back, and I’ll pay it. 

And they just clear the problem off the books by paying it. But there may also be people who say, well, hang on a minute, these guys are the least secure of all of the creditors in a default situation or in administration. 

They’re likely to get much less than the full amount back. Therefore, we’ve got some negotiating room here to maneuver in. Can we get 50% haircuts, i.e. taking the debt from 200 million to 100 million, or can we get a bit more, whatever the view is? 

And that’s putting aside all of the legal issues, all the potential legal issues, which Fridkin sort of alluded to but didn’t provide any details. I have to say it’s not at all Leadenhall’s fault. 

George: No, all I’m getting at is, unless Father Christmas tips up, and I would want to do due diligence on the inside of their brains, if they did, but I’d be very grateful as an Evertonian if somebody tips up with all this cash and goes, don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it all. 

To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t see the likelihood of that, because I don’t know the business world at all, but if somebody has respected that Dan Friedkin has gone, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, then I can’t see who’s coming in. 

So if I’m right, how close are we going to get to having to go into administration in the New Year? 

Paul: Well, again, like we were this year, the get out of jail card is in January, the transfer window opens and we can sell players in order to see ourselves through probably till the end of the season. Also, there’s the argument that probably by the end of this year, by the end of 2024, the stadium will be completed and there is the possibility of borrowing more money against the stadium, even though clearly we won’t be playing in the stadium until August of 2025 at the earliest. 

So, Moshiri, you know, if you just sat in Moshiri’s seat for a moment, he would think that, you know, well, there are options open to me here. It’s not, you know, it’s not a slam dunk that if by the end of the year, I haven’t found another buyer, the club’s going to go into administration. 

I don’t think that’s the case. The point is that we just find ourselves in this repeated cycle of having to borrow more money, of remaining spectacularly uncompetitive and effectively becoming a depreciating asset, both in financial terms, because this has real consequences to what Moshiri ultimately receives. 

But I think far more importantly than that, why should we be necessarily concerned about what Moshiri receives? Far more important to us as Evertonians is the competitive position that puts the club in both in terms of what we can do on the pitch, but also in terms of making ourselves attractive to potential players who want to come to the club, attractive in terms of keeping the players that we’ve got. 

You know, one of the characteristics of Moshiri’s time here is the quality of some of the players that have left the club, some because they didn’t like the way the club was being run, not just for financial reasons. 

So, you know, one can look back now and at the scorn upon which was placed on Lukaku for Lukaku, saying there was no way he was going back to Everton, it turned out that he was absolutely right to say that in terms of his own career. 

And, you know, whether or not that is the same, we don’t have a Lukaku and we don’t have a Lukaku type character, I don’t think in the squad, but the same issues are as prevalent today as they were when Lukaku left, if not worse. 

And that, to me, is the big problem. And in a sense, the point of the article that I wrote was to demonstrate a couple of things. One, a lack of governance and therefore loads and loads of really bad decisions over the years has a cumulative effect on the value of the football club, not only from the shareholder point of view, but from the point of view of what the actual club is and what it actually means to the people who work there, 

and particularly the players who, in their short careers, commit their time to Everton. It all has, over time, it all has a detrimental effect. And then when you add in the fact that there have been several potential buyers of the club, some who’ve got further down the line and others, but none of them have either had the ability to buy the club or none of them have wanted to buy the club, even if they had the ability or found a reason why they shouldn’t buy the club. 

That, to me, is the biggest concern, particularly then, sorry, just to finish, particularly then when you look at, well, who are the people charged not only with us having got to where we are now, who were the architects of where we are, but who are the architects of getting us to a better place in the near future? 

And they’re the one and same people. And you’ve really got to ask yourself, if they haven’t been able to do this in eight years, in the case of Moshirii, what’s going to change now? 

Andy: Hm, wait, I had him. 

Paul: And that’s, for me, the real difficulty, the fact that we’ve got a board of three people, one of whom everybody tells me is a very well-meaning and pleasant individual in Colin Chong and has a very good track record in terms of facilities management, in terms of managing projects, building projects, et cetera, but isn’t in anybody’s eyes an adequately qualified or experienced CEO to deal with these matters. 

We have a non-executive director in Spellman, who’s a former friend, or is a friend, sorry, former colleague of Farhad Moshiri, whom nobody has ever heard from. We don’t know anything about him other than we can see his previous directors when he was involved in energy-related businesses, but we don’t know anything about why he’s at Everson Football Club and what his role is and what he brings to the party, other than being a convenient proxy for Moshirii, I guess.

 And then he got Moahiri himself. And with his track record at Everson and with questionable decision-making along the way and questionable motives along the way, you really have to scratch your head and say, how is it possible that any of these three can be deemed as suitable, appropriate, and positive contributors to the sale of Everson Football Club? 

George: Depressing question, depressing answer too, yeah. 

Paul: Yeah because you know when a potential buyer comes along and I made the analogy in the article it’s a bit like you know when you’re selling a car not you don’t know if you’re buying a second hand car you don’t just look at the car itself and look at its service history and most sensible people actually look at the guy that’s selling the car or the lady that’s selling the car if it’s a lady and wonder what sort of driver and what sort of carer of the car are they and if you do if you don’t get a good feeling about that you don’t buy the car because there’s plenty of other cars that you can go and buy elsewhere you don’t take the risk and to a degree I think it’s the same currently with football clubs that okay if you’re a Tottenham and you operate in a totally different market if you’re a Liverpool United Arsenal similarly and but if you’re an Everton who despite the attractions of a brand new stadium going forwards have evidently struggled have questionable governance based on all the evidence that’s out there in front of them have questionable finances when one gets actually gets in to see the the real figures against what we’re told and what’s published in the accounts then it starts getting and this was a point now it starts getting really difficult to understand who actually is going to be the next buyer of the football club 

George: Right. You know, a lunatic, I don’t know what to say, really, Paul. 

Paul: But there are always people who take the view that I can run a business. This is not me speaking. This is the person who takes this view. I can run a business better than anybody else. Therefore, the fact that somebody else has failed in running everything and means that I just get them at a really good price. 

And then I will show the world what you can actually do with everything. Football. There’s always those types of people around. And although strangely, none of them have appeared yet at Moshiri’s door or if they appeared at the door, he’s not answered the bell. 

We’ve  just got to hope that somebody of that nature comes along and presents a case to oshirii that Moshiri actually buys as against, you know, the types of people that he’s bought stories from in the past. 

You know, the Kaminski guy in the summer of 2022, it took less than half an hour to find out that his property company had debt issues and the auditors of that guy’s property company were questioning whether it could be a going concern. 

Yet, Farhad Moshiri thought they were suitable purchases of Everson Football Club. And then, of course, we get into the whole 777 thing, which people will be sick to death of hearing me talk about. 

And yet again, you know, Moshirii thinks that they are. Well, he said, I mean, you know, his exact words after long discussions, blah, blah, blah. These were the best people and the most appropriate people to buy Everton Football Club. 

How does that fill out any potential buyer with any confidence? 

Andy: I mean. 

Paul: because frankly Oh, sorry 

Andy: Well, it’s probably an inane question. Is there any way the sale of Everton Football Club can be taken out of the hands of Moshiri? Short of having it committed? 

Paul: And if only, I mean, the simple answer is no, there isn’t really not whilst he’s legally able to be a director of the company and to be the majority shareholder of the company. And he might be legally entitled to make those decisions clearly on both counts. 

He is the only way that I can think where you bring comfort to a potential buyer and you bring comfort to Evertonians is that he accepts that the people around him and his advisors haven’t done the job that is expected of them to date and therefore he must bring in people, independent non-executive directors, who have experience of selling businesses in this type of situation that Everton are and are duty bound by law to act in the best interests of all shareholders. 

And I think that’s effectively the only thing he can do because, you know, the other point at the end of the day is there’s a certain or there’s a prospect at least of a conflict of interest. What is best for Moshiri may not necessarily be what’s best for Everton Football Club. 

And where does his responsibilities lie? Well, it’s actually quite clear, both in the Articles of Association, which is like the governing rules for Everton Football Club, that he has no responsibility to act in Everton’s interests as against his own. 

But it’s also quite clear in UK corporate legislation and because Everton is a private company, again, he has no responsibility to the club if indeed his own, if indeed what he decides benefits him as against benefiting the club. 

George: But Paul, you know perfectly well that he’s not going to bring in independent people. He’s had eight years to bring in competent, independent people and he’s not done it. 

Paul: Absolutely, you’re 100% right, George, yeah. 

George: That’s, that’s just not going to happen. So my question, which, where’s the hope 

Paul: Well, that’s possibly the most difficult question you’ve ever asked me because I’m not sure I can hand on heart, give you an adequate answer to that. 

George: Right. 

Paul: Yeah, I’m almost at the point where I’m hoping for the tooth fairy to turn out. 

George: Yeah, yeah, it’s Father Christmas, isn’t it? 

Paul: It could happen. It could happen that we go on an amazing run as a football club and Dyche turns it all around and DCL stays and he scores 25 goals next season and we qualify for Europe and many of our problems are behind us. 

We move into the new stadium next year and we become a sellable asset once more. That could happen. You know, Leicester winning the Premier League is an example of really strange things happening from time to time but in the absence of something extraordinary like that, it’s really difficult. 

If you step back from just being an Evertonian, it’s really difficult to say hand on heart, well there is a ready solution to this because all of the issues that I’ve presented are real and all of the solutions currently lie in the hands of the man that created the problems in the first instance and he’s showing no evidence or willingness to change his behaviour or as you say George, for example, bringing in people who can take control of the situation and act in the best interests of the football club whilst recognising his interests as well. I’m not asking for anybody to come in and screw Moshiri. 

I’m asking for either Moshiri or other people to come in and operate in the best interests of the football club because at the end of the day, it will remain our football club long after five Moshiris come and gone. One of the points I made about governance and I genuinely believe this is that the very best business owners always create a situation where when a business is sold, it’s sold in the absolute best state it can be and that’s what maximises profits, maximises return for the investor but also as is the case with a football club, that’s where the owner is acting as a true custodian and maybe that’s a flight of fancy that’s way beyond where Moshiri is or way beyond even where Moshiri might ever end up but that can be the only hope. 

George: Right. 

Paul: And if if he can’t do it, then at least allow other people to take take on board that role, as I say, recognize what his particular needs are, but then act in the best interest of the club and ensure that whoever comes in next is not just, you know, a rinse and repeat or it’s not the same play with different actors. 

George: Fingers crossed. 

Paul: A couple of people said to me after the last podcast we did, it really can’t get much more depressing than what I just listened to or read. And I’m not sure we’ve made it any easier for any Evertonians this evening, certainly judging by the response to what I wrote today with that neither. 

But in the absence of somebody else coming along and saying that you’re talking absolute rubbish and this is the reason why you’re talking rubbish and this is the reason why actually we’re in a good place. 

And because Tottenham are being offered in the marketplace for £3.5 billion, we’re worth at least £750 million and we’ve got a stadium that’s worth £1 billion because that’s what it would cost to build. 

Unless somebody can come along and actually demonstrate that all of that is true and that somebody’s prepared to buy on that basis, then actually I’m fairly confident that my version of events is more accurate than theirs. 

George: It’s like some sort of black farce, I can’t… 

Andy: This seems to get worse within a week to go by. 

George: It does at the moment, Andy. If we’d tonked Coventry 4-0, it would feel very different. And your scenario of Dyche rescuing the club from the shop floor upwards by producing a team that is competitive and lifts the spirits of absolutely everybody and puts us back on newsworthy stuff, not as a basket case, like that Guardian columnist, the cartoonist, David Squires, that piece that I’ve sent you both. 

It’s kind of like summing up what a rabble we are at the moment and what we are. I really, you know, I kind of like to knock this on the head now because I’ve got nothing positive to say and I don’t like, you know, I don’t like the feeling and I’ve got nothing positive to share at the moment at all, you know. 

I mean, I hope this boy that we bought from Ireland, Jake O’Brien, is it? I hope he’s marvellous and Jesper Lindstrom and I don’t know. 

Paul: Can I finish by giving something that’s positive? Yeah, yeah. And that is the the extraordinary and you know, we said it before, but it’s I think it’s worth saying, particularly on an evening like this, when we’ve talked in the manner in which we have, it’s an extraordinary support that Everton Football Club has, was it nearly 3000 people went to Coventry last night, whatever the number of tickets that we’ve been given for Preston North End, we’ve sold out and in a WhatsApp group I’m part of, you know, there were people asking people who live in London asking for spares, you know, spare tickets so that they could travel up to Preston to watch Everton in a meaningless friendly and it’s just remarkable and we’ll go into the season regardless of whatever condition that we’re in and regardless of what our ownership position is, we’ll go into the season and we’ll sell every single ticket because that’s what we do regardless of the fact that, 

You know, it’s not just because it’s ever since last season at Goodison Park and we’ll sell every single ticket for every single away game and we’ll have the most extraordinary support and the team will have the most extraordinary support and there will be people who will want will willfully ignore everything that we’ve just talked about in the last 

George: It’s good for a lot of people. 

Paul: hour or so because they just love the club and they love football and they love the experience of going with their mates to the game. 

George: in last night, Paul. That’s why you watch. Because, you know, five minutes to kick off, you hope the team will play. You hope Holgate will have a blinder. You hope there’ll be something and it’s a real kick in the teeth. 

And far easier for me watching on an illegal stream than it is for people actually buying a ticket and going all the way to Preston from London, whatever. If that’s why you do it, sure, that’s absolutely true. 

Paul: That is the positive, isn’t it? And the club shouldn’t trade on that, and Moshiri shouldn’t trade on it, but it is positive. It is the greatest resource, the greatest asset that Everton Football Club has. 

And if that asset can’t be, and it’s not that it should, but if it can’t be damaged or reduced or whatever by virtue of what’s gone on in recent years, it’s not going to happen again this year, either. 

It will be there, and it will be ever present, and it should never be taken for granted, of course, but it will be there, and it should be appreciated and loved and valued for what it is, and it is the one big positive, and will always be the positive, about being an Evertonian and about being associated with those people who actually make the club what it is, not the idiots that run the club. 

And if we’re looking for a positive, that’s the positive, I think. 

Andy: If only we could turn that loyalty and open a club into a co-operative ownership. 

George: Absolutely, Andy. What is the pathway to that? There is no pathway to that, is there Paul? 

Paul: Well, unless we can all club together and find probably around three quarters of a billion pounds. No, it’s a simple answer. 

Andy: When. 

Paul: And that would be to repay the debt and to provide the money that is needed to reinvest in the club. But nothing of that magnitude has ever been achieved. That’s not to say it can’t be, but I’m just saying nothing of that magnitude has ever been achieved in terms of club ownership or final ownership of a club. 

George: Well, none of the 92 league clubs are owned in any way, in the same way as the German model. 

Paul: Yes, some of them are, and you’re going to embarrass me by asking who they are. 

George: Didn’t you say it was Lincoln, Andy? 

Paul: as you want, and off the top of my head. I mean, there are others. 

George: But did Portsmouth become that way because they went into administration when everything went completely perfect? 

Paul: Yeah. 

George: So is that a pathway if Everton goes completely pear shaped and all the things you said about the way the board is and the way the board is not changing would lead me to believe that that’s definitely where we’re going and frankly, the sooner, the better. 

George: If that is the case, would administration open up some kind of possibility that we could do what Portsmouth has done? 

Paul: Yes, except we would still need hundreds of millions of pounds. 

George: hundreds of millions of pounds. I’ll get onto my agent and I’ll meet you next week. 

Paul: I mean, in terms of clubs that have done that, I’m just looking now, Rushden and Diamonds, Chester, Darlington, these are clubs that we might know about, Hereford, local club, of course, Liverpool, Runcorn, and Scarborough, and then we got clubs like, I suppose, Wimbledon, who, you know, created a new club when they moved, when the Wimbledon have all moved up to Milton Keynes, and of course, you two both being Mancunians, will know about FC United of Manchester. 

Andy: You know, I should yeah, yeah, 

Paul: Yeah, so it is possible. And then, you know, I think, again, from memory, Lincoln has, I think, nearly 20% of the club is owned by a supporters’ society or, you know, supporters’ trust. I think Luton have got a fairly big 

Andy: membership. I’m just going to say I think Luton have as well, aren’t they? Yeah. 

Paul: and from memory I think York City have got a I think 25% membership by the fans but you know with degrees with respect to all of those clubs that they are all 

George: that we play friendlies against. 

Paul: Yeah, and lose. It’s the clubs that we willingly go to and lose on their behalf. 

Andy: Yeah. 

Paul: It would be extraordinary if it could happen as ever since, but I don’t see any prospect of that. 

George: No, but it’s also extraordinary, as you’ve said time and again, and as every single person in this podcast knows, it’s also extraordinary what’s happened to Everton in the last 28 years. Yeah, which had been a downward spiral. 

Well, there has to be some positive way out of this. And that I think Andy’s right. I think of all the clubs I could think of and all, you know, and I’m never telling you now, I know I take on what you’re saying about the fan base that the fan base would understand this completely. 

They might not have three quarters of a billion quid, but don’t worry. I’ll speak to my agent about that. 

Paul: I can see you putting your face up for Talking the Blues. 

George: Yeah, it’s a point. 

Paul: All right, should we leave it there? 

George: Yeah, man. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Andy: Yeah, I think we’re just about done. 

Paul: Onwards and upwards, we’re still in business, we’re still playing football, and I can’t remember now what the date of the first game of the season proper is. 17th, isn’t it? 17th or 18th of August. We’ll all be as massively enthusiastic as we ever have been before. 

George: And something else we haven’t talked about is that some of this shopping that Thelwell’s been doing is very, very interesting. And, you know, if he can sell some of the deadwood that was on show, some of it last night, there is the possibility of some optimism about the fact that clearly he and Dyche are recalibrating that team. 

Now, that might be because they expect to lose the big names from it and they’re covering themselves. But, you know, there is new blood in the club on the shop floor. And, you know, we must be and we will be totally positive and supportive of them. 

Andy: Yeah. 

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Well said, George. Well said. Okay. To both of you, thanks very much for your time. Thank you for your contributions. And, but most importantly, thank you to everybody for listening, your comments and your support, as always is, you know, really grateful. 

George: Absolutely bloody amazing. It is. 

Paul: especially with some of the rubbish we spout but there you go. And yeah, thanks everybody and we’ll speak to you soon. Take care.