Quando sono solo e sogno all’orizzonte e mancan le parole

It’s time to say goodbye to the club we have become. New ownership, a new stadium and one hopes, leadership and ambition offers an opportunity to reverse the decline and plan for a more competitive and successful future.

However, that will not happen just through a change of ownership – we have experience of that, a dramatically negative experience – it requires complete, utter, absolute change. Change is difficult, and the Friedkins will face huge challenges once the takeover is complete. Almost every aspect of the current Everton needs change. It will, and should, challenge everyone associated with the club, including us, the fans – more on this later. Established habits, expectations, people and even awareness of who and what we are as a football club must change if we are going to progress from where we are.

A recognition, an acceptance of who and what we are, has to be the starting point. If we truly want success in the future there can be no mercy in firstly recognising our true status, then expelling the behaviours that have led to our decline. That of course includes those individuals and policies that are left and still hold responsibility for recent and past performances on and off the pitch.

A sixth decade of decline

For more than a third of our existence we have been in decline. It is almost six decades since Everton Football Club have truly sat at the pinnacle of the English game, perhaps two thirds of an individual fan’s life expectancy. Once the Moores family’s interest started to decline, so did our competitiveness at club level. I include within that, the all too brief trophy winning years of the mid-eighties, when Howard Kendall and a number of inspired, shrewd purchases produced exhilarating, hard, winning football and briefly we could justify the claim to be the best football team in Europe. Best team, but by no means the best club. Even in the early 90’s as one of the five instigators of the Premier League – let’s not forget the formation of the Premier League, the alliance with the Football Association – not the Football League itself, was signed off at a meeting between all parties, at Goodison Park, hosted by Phillip Carter. Yet, we were unable to take advantage of what was effectively a legacy position, not a true reflection of our even then declining status.

As has been documented many times, and witnessed by all who read these words, our competitive decline continued in the Kenwright years – a period that should never be forgotten, accepted ot indeed forgiven. Moyes, and his hard working teams produced some close moments, agonisingly close at times, but again (as was the case under a much more successful Kendall in the 80’s) our relative competitiveness disguised our decline off the pitch.

There has been a gradual, steady erosion of standards, driven by a combination of inadequate ownership, poor leadership, appalling governance, and – it has to be said – a growing contempt for the one constant, the Everton fanbase. What should have been, what should always be, now and in the future is that legal, financial and commercial ownership of a football club is an adjunct to the prime responsibility, which is that of being a custodian of the cultural asset that is any football club, but in the context of history, location and values so particularly relevant to Everton and Evertonians at every level.

Successful legal, financial and commercial ownership is a prerequisite to achievement on the pitch, that is firmly established on these pages – it is that successful combination that provides the resources that enables potential footballing success. Failure, provides the opposite in absolute terms but perhaps even more importantly in relative terms. Football, by its very nature, is highly competitive and the huge inflows of capital and revenues in the last three decades has only increased the challenges of competing. All at a time when Everton were in absolute and relative terms firmly in reverse.

The Moshiri years

That decline has accelerated during the Moshiri years – thankfully rapidly coming to its conclusion.

I suspect there’s going to be an attempt of revisionism of Moshiri’s reign in future weeks. As the time towards the completion of the Friedkin takeover draws nearer, some will be tempted to offer the view that the delivery of an almost completed, new stadium at Bramley-Moore balances out Moshiri’s other failings. Let me be absolutely clear – from my perspective at least – the man has been an unmitigated disaster for Everton Football Club and Bramley-Moore does not absolve him from the damage his ownership has caused.

In the last nearly nine years I have quoted Warren Buffett several times, especially “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” Never has this been more apparent. A narrative that Moshiri has played “a blinder” in building the stadium and getting 777/A-Cap et al to lend to us is so far from reality.

I will be analysing Moshiri’s financial record in detail in the next few weeks, but let’s put to bed the idea that the stadium wipes the slate clean. It doesn’t – indeed the eventual cost of the stadium, the cost of servicing the debt, and the structure of that debt have been significant factors in our financial and therefore football decline in recent years.

It has also been a significant factor in our attractiveness to potential purchasers, something which has extended the process for much longer than should have been necessary, and pre the Friedkin interest left us potentially in the hands of the likes of 777 Partners and John Textor. Let’s not forget – they were Moshiri’s choices. Choices which have delayed the changes necessary to reverse our decline; choices which increased and maintain the prospect of relegation and choices which brought the club to the brink of administration and/or default with creditors on several occasions.

But back to the stadium. The harsh reality is that (i) the stadium capacity is less than optimal (ii) the construction cost is way in excess of what was originally anticipated, (iii) the delivery date is considerably later than initially intended (the Commonwealth games had they been awarded were due to take place in 2022) and (iv) the cost of servicing the debts associated with the stadium have been enormously prohibitive, damaging to the competitiveness of the football club and will impact the benefits derived from the stadium for many years ahead.

Not only will the costs to date impact the future benefits derived from the stadium, but they will add to the costs of existing and future fans in attending the new stadium. Ultimately, the final figure will depend upon how much debt is associated with the stadium under Friedkin’s ownership, but it is not unreasonable to calculate that each seat in the stadium has cost more than £15000 to construct and will carry (per seat) an interest cost of more than £400 per year – a cost borne by each match-going fan.

Setting the scene and saying goodbye

As in any situation whereby an individual or a corporate body moves from difficulties, to recovery and then to future success, acknowledging precisely where we are currently and the reasons for it are always the necessary first steps.

For Everton, and Evertonians specifically, that means acknowledging it is time to say goodbye to what we have become. It means accepting what we currently are, but above all else the changes that are necessary for future success.

It means no longer accepting second (or worse) rate outcomes or future solutions; it means no longer being accommodating of past errors, of seeing the past and the participants/causes of the past through royal blue tinted glasses. If that’s viewed as being harsh on a Sharp (as an example), indeed on any former player who has accepted the mediocrity of the present without challenge or even Moshiri (although I have no idea why it should be) perhaps it should be viewed as a new ruthlessness – a necessary ruthlessness on the path to future success.

We should never forget nor fail to acknowledge past successes, but that in itself should never be a barrier to future change and future success.

One thing is for certain, it is time to say goodbye to our past, remove the romanticism of what the club might want us to believe we are, accept who we are and demand from the Friedkins much more both in terms of performance and accountability, all within the context of their future custodial role.
Time to say goodbye
Paesi che non ho mai, Veduto e vissuto con te, Adesso, sì, li vivrò