With disappointing recent performances on the pitch, a lack of communication from our current owners, and the recognition that there’s much to do rebuilding the squad and sorting operational issues at the Hill Dickenson stadium, it can be easy to feel down regarding Everton’s position.

Whilst not for a moment wanting to downplay the obvious frustrations of those that attend the Hill Dickenson stadium and those that watch Everton around the world, it is (for the sake of balance and perspective) worth referring back to the last five years and recalling why we are not yet as competitive as we might like.

Putting our current (less than ideal) position into context, especially considering what might have happened and how close the worst possible outcomes (relegation and insolvency) were, might just give all Evertonians a small boost as we play out the remainder of this season, striving for our highest league position in nearly a decade.

Thus, let’s look back over the last five years…….

The convergence of economic shocks

The financial trajectory of Everton Football Club between 2020 and 2025 represents one of the most volatile and complex case studies in the history of the modern Premier League and football generally.
This period, characterised by a confluence of internal strategic mismanagement and severe external shocks, saw the club transition from an era of unchecked profligacy and appalling judgement under Farhad Moshiri to a state of near-insolvency, before undergoing a radical capital restructuring under The Friedkin Group (TFG).
To understand the magnitude of the crisis that enveloped the club, one must analyse the interplay between three distinct but compounding forces: the structural deficit created by an inflated wage bill relative to turnover; the sudden cessation of commercial revenue following geopolitical sanctions on Russian entities; and the immense capital liquidity strain imposed by the construction of the Bramley-Moore Dock stadium during a period of rising global interest rates. These factors, occurring simultaneously with the tightening of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), created a perfect storm that pushed a founding member of the Football League, a Premier League Founder and ever-present, to the precipice of administration.
The following report provides a forensic summary of Everton’s accounts, debt structures, lending facilities, and strategic decisions during this half-decade. It traces the granular details of the Profit and Loss (P&L) evolution, dissects the toxic debt stack that rendered the club uninvestable for institutional lenders, and documents the specific mechanisms of the rescue operation executed in late 2024. Furthermore, it evaluates the prospective economic landscape following the transition to the Hill Dickinson Stadium, assessing whether the structural recapitalisation has finally secured the club’s status as a going concern.

The era of structural deficit: profit and loss analysis (2020–2024)

The foundation of Everton’s financial distress was laid in the years immediately preceding the 2020s, but the fiscal years from 2020 to 2024 exposed the unsustainability of the business model. The P&L accounts from this period reveal a club operating with a chronic structural deficit, where operating expenses routinely outstripped turnover even before the consideration of player amortisation and exceptional costs.

The peak of fiscal bleeding (2020–2022)

The onset of the decade coincided with the most severe financial losses in the club’s history, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on matchday revenue and a legacy of aggressive transfer spending that failed to deliver on-pitch success.
In the financial year ending 2020, Everton recorded a record loss of £139.8 million. This figure was not merely an anomaly but a signal of deep-seated inefficiency. The subsequent year, 2020/21, saw losses of £121.0 million. While the pandemic was a primary driver, eradicating gate receipts and necessitating rebates to broadcasters, the underlying cost base was disproportionately high. The wage-to-turnover ratio during this period hovered dangerously high, frequently exceeding the 85-90% range, leaving virtually no free cash flow to service debt or fund other operations.
The 2021/22 financial year appeared, on the surface, to show a dramatic improvement, with losses restated to £38.3 million. However, a forensic view of this period indicates that this reduction was not achieved through organic revenue growth or cost rationalisation, but rather through emergency asset disposals. The club was forced to sell key playing assets, such as Richarlison, to generate sufficient profit on disposal to comply with PSR limits. This strategy of selling to survive masked the continued operational losses and weakened the competitive integrity of the squad, which in turn threatened the broadcasting revenue that is contingent on league position.

The 2022/23 nadir: revenue contraction and cost constraints

The financial year ending 30 June 2023 represented the nadir of the club’s operational performance. The loss widened significantly to £89.1 million. This deterioration was driven by a simultaneous contraction in revenue and an inability to sufficiently reduce the cost base.
Turnover fell from £181 million in the previous year to £172.2 million. This decline was multifaceted. Sponsorship income plummeted from £35.0 million to £19.2 million, a direct consequence of the loss of USM-related partnerships. Simultaneously, the club’s on-pitch struggles meant that merit payments from the Premier League were depressed. Despite a decision to increase season ticket prices, which saw gate receipts rise marginally from £15.6 million to £17.3 million, the matchday yield remained significantly lower than peer clubs, reinforcing the desperate economic necessity of the stadium move.
Operating expenses in 2022/23 remained stubbornly high. The wage-to-turnover ratio stood at a huge 89% (or 92% depending on the inclusion of outsourced operations), a figure that is widely regarded in football finance as unsustainable. This ratio indicates that for every £100 earned by the club, £89 was immediately consumed by player and staff salaries, leaving only £11 to cover stadium operations, travel, administration, and, crucially, debt service.

The 2023/24 stabilisation attempt

The accounts for the year ending 30 June 2024, published in March 2025, offered the first tentative signs of stabilisation, though the club remained heavily loss-making. Everton posted a loss of £53.2 million, a reduction of £35.9 million from the previous year.

Table 1: Comparative Profit & Loss Metrics (2022–2024)

The improvement in 2023/24 was driven by a £14.7 million increase in turnover to £186.9 million. Broadcast revenue was the primary engine of this growth, rising by £13.2 million to £129.2 million. This uplift was attributable to an improvement in league position (finishing 15th rather than 17th), which generated higher merit payments, and an increase in facility fees due to the club being selected for live broadcast on 23 occasions.
Commercial revenue also showed resilience, increasing to £21.6 million driven by new partnerships with Ticketmaster, eToro, FIGS, and Kick. However, this was partially offset by a decline in “Other Commercial Revenue” due to the absence of a lucrative overseas tour, unlike the previous year’s trip to Australia.
Despite these improvements, the club remained in a precarious position. The P&L account was burdened by exceptional costs of £10.4 million related to the refinancing of debt facilities and legal costs associated with the Premier League Commission hearings regarding PSR breaches. Furthermore, while staff costs fell to £156.6 million, the reduction involved a significant cut in headcount, dropping from 555 to 506 employees, a symptom of a business contracting to survive.

The geopolitical shock: Russian sanctions and the commercial void

A critical, often underappreciated factor in Everton’s financial unraveling was the geopolitical shock precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The subsequent imposition of sanctions on Russian oligarchs had an immediate and devastating impact on Everton’s commercial projections due to the club’s deep ties with USM Holdings, a conglomerate controlled by Alisher Usmanov.

The value of the USM ecosystem

Alisher Usmanov, the close business associate of majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri, had integrated his business interests into Everton’s commercial framework. USM Holdings sponsored the Finch Farm training ground and associated companies held various other advertising rights. More significantly, in January 2020, USM paid £30 million for an exclusive option to acquire the naming rights for the new Bramley-Moore Dock stadium.
This £30 million payment was booked as income in the 2019/20 accounts, aiding PSR compliance for that period. However, the true value of the relationship lay in the future execution of that option. Internal projections likely anticipated a long-term naming rights deal worth hundreds of millions of pounds over the lifespan of the stadium, front-loaded to assist with construction costs.

The immediate financial impact

Following the invasion of Ukraine, Everton was forced to suspend all commercial arrangements with USM, MegaFon, and Yota. The financial impact was immediate and twofold:

1. Direct Revenue Loss: The club lost approximately £20 million in annual sponsorship revenue. This shortfall is clearly visible in the accounts, where sponsorship income fell for three successive years, bottoming out at £19.2 million in 2022/23.
2. Strategic Paralysis: The suspension of the relationship left a massive inventory void. The naming rights for the new stadium, the club’s most valuable commercial asset, were effectively frozen. The club could not exercise the USM option, nor could they easily market the rights to a new partner immediately given the global economic uncertainty and the distressed nature of the asset.

The inability to replace this revenue stream was a central component of the club’s defense during PSR tribunals. Everton argued that the sanctions constituted a force majeure event that unforeseeably removed a confirmed revenue stream. While the independent commission accepted the factual basis of the loss, they rejected it as sufficient mitigation for the extent of the spending breach, noting that the club continued to spend heavily on transfers even after the risks became apparent.

The regulatory stranglehold: Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR)

The intersection of the structural deficit and the commercial shock placed Everton in direct violation of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules. These regulations prohibit clubs from losing more than £105 million over a rolling three-year period (with certain add-backs allowed for infrastructure, youth development, and women’s football).

Anatomy of the breaches

Everton’s cumulative losses over the relevant monitoring periods far exceeded the £105 million threshold.

• FY 2021/22 Breach: The commission found that Everton’s calculation resulted in a loss of £124.5 million, exceeding the threshold by £19.5 million. This led to an initial 10-point deduction in November 2023, the largest in Premier League history at the time, which was subsequently reduced to 6 points on appeal.
• FY 2022/23 Breach: A second charge was brought for the period ending 2022/23. The commission found losses of £121.6 million, leading to a further 2-point deduction in April 2024.

The “double jeopardy” and interest capitalisation defense

The legal battles surrounding these breaches revealed the extreme complexity of Everton’s accounting maneuvers to stay afloat.

• Double jeopardy: Everton successfully argued that because the two monitoring periods overlapped significantly (the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons were included in both calculations), they were effectively being punished twice for the same financial sins. This argument was accepted by the commission, mitigating the sanction for the second breach.
• Interest capitalisation dispute: A core technical dispute involved the treatment of interest payments on the club’s growing debt pile. Everton sought to capitalise the interest payments on loans from Rights & Media Funding, arguing these loans were used for stadium construction and thus the interest was an allowable “add-back” (infrastructure cost) rather than an operating expense. The Premier League counter-argued that these loans were used for general working capital (i.e., paying wages and transfer fees) and therefore the interest should count towards the PSR loss limit.

This dispute prolonged the regulatory uncertainty. It was only in January 2025 that the Premier League formally discontinued the remaining complaints regarding FY23 interest treatment, deeming the club compliant for FY24. This resolution was critical in clearing the path for the ownership transition, removing the specter of further points deductions.

The Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium: asset creation amidst liquidity crisis

The construction of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock was the defining strategic project of the era, but its execution during a period of financial distress created a massive liquidity trap.

Cost escalation and capitalisation

The total cost of the stadium project escalated significantly from initial estimates. By mid-2025, the cumulative capitalised cost had reached £737.6 million. Other estimates suggest the final total project cost, including all financing and ancillary infrastructure, is greater than £800 million.
The 2023/24 accounts show a capital expenditure of £312.7 million in a single year, up from £210.9 million the previous year. This massive cash outflow coincided with the drying up of Moshiri’s personal funding. Consequently, the club had to finance the build through external debt.

The financing gap

Farhad Moshiri had initially invested approximately £450 million in shareholder loans, a significant portion of which funded the early stages of the project. However, as the project moved into its most capital-intensive phase (the fit-out and mechanical & electrical engineering stages), Moshiri ceased funding. This forced the club to seek funding from alternative lenders, leading to the accumulation of secured debt against the stadium company (Everton Stadium Development Company Ltd), most notably the £158 million loan from MSP Sports Capital.
The strain of funding the stadium while simultaneously covering operating losses is evident in the Cash Flow statements. In 2023/24, the “Investing Activities” (stadium build) consumed £210.5 million of cash, while “Operating Activities” burned another £24.6 million. This necessitated a net cash inflow from financing of £246.0 million, effectively borrowing vast sums just to keep the lights on and the cranes moving.

The debt crisis: a toxicology of Everton’s balance sheet

By mid-2024, Everton’s balance sheet had become toxic. The club was laden with a complex stack of high-interest, short-term debt that rendered it effectively uninvestable for standard institutional lenders. Understanding this debt hierarchy is essential to grasping how close the club came to administration.

The creditor hierarchy (pre-restructuring)

The gross debt position exceeded £1 billion when shareholder loans were included. However, the external, interest-bearing debt was the immediate threat to solvency.

Table 2: Everton FC Debt Structure (Mid-2024)

The “credit card”: Rights & Media Funding

The facility provided by Rights & Media Funding (R&MF) was particularly debilitating. R&MF, an opaque entity based in Cheshire with offshore funding sources, ultimately controlled by Michael Tabor, held a “negative pledge” clause over the club’s assets. This clause effectively gave R&MF veto power over any new debt the club wished to raise.
The cost of this facility was exorbitant. Reports indicated that interest charges reached £30 million in a single year, equating to roughly £438,000 per week, more than the wages of the club’s highest-paid players. The interest rate was pegged at Base Rate + 5%, meaning that as the Bank of England raised rates to combat inflation in 2023 and 2024, Everton’s debt service costs spiraled upward automatically.

The “poison pill”: 777 Partners and A-CAP

Following the collapse of the 777 Partners takeover bid in mid-2024, the £200 million in working capital loans they had provided became a toxic liability. These funds were sourced from A-CAP, an insurance firm, and were implicated in a civil lawsuit in New York alleging a massive reinsurance fraud (Leadenhall Capital Partners vs. 777 Partners).
Because these loans were subject to freezing orders in the US courts, they could not simply be repaid. Any potential buyer of Everton faced the risk that repaying A-CAP would be seen as dissipation of assets in a fraud case. This legal minefield scared off prospective buyers like the Friedkin Group during their initial due diligence in July 2024, prolonging the club’s agony.

The near-administration event: how close did we actually get?

The evidence gathered confirms that Everton came perilously close to administration in the first half of 2024. The threat was not theoretical; it was an imminent operational reality.

“Material uncertainty” and auditor warnings

The independent auditor’s report for the accounts ending June 2023, signed in January 2024, contained a stark warning. The auditors, Crowe UK LLP, stated that a “material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the Group and the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern”. This language is the strongest warning an auditor can issue before a company enters insolvency proceedings. The directors admitted in the report that they had a “reasonable expectation” of survival only if the takeover completed or funding was secured, neither of which was guaranteed.

The Teneo engagement and the Bonza collapse

In April 2024, the situation became critical. Reports emerged that Everton had engaged Teneo, a global advisory firm specialising in restructuring and insolvency. This move is a standard fiduciary step for directors facing potential insolvency; they must seek professional advice to avoid personal liability for “wrongful trading” (trading while insolvent).
The trigger for this crisis was the collapse of Bonza, an Australian airline owned by 777 Partners, which entered voluntary administration. This collapse signaled that the liquidity of 777 Partners had evaporated. Everton had been relying on periodic injections of working capital from 777 to pay the monthly wage bill and the stadium contractor, Laing O’Rourke. When 777 failed to provide a promised £15 million tranche in April, the club faced an immediate cash flow crisis.
Without Andy Bell, George Downing (both successful business men and life long Evertonians stepping in plus Moshiri contributing at the eleventh hour to bridge the gap using personal liquidity (despite his previous reluctance), the directors would have been legally compelled to file a “Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator” to protect the creditors. The club survived this period “by the skin of our teeth,” managing cash flow on a week-to-week basis.

The Friedkin Group rescue and structural recapitalisation

The acquisition of Everton by The Friedkin Group (TFG) in December 2024 was not a standard equity purchase but a complex distressed asset turnaround. TFG, led by Dan Friedkin, utilised a vehicle named Roundhouse Capital Holdings Limited to execute a strategy that prioritised balance sheet restructuring over simple ownership transfer.

Dealing with the “toxic” debt stack

TFG’s primary objective was to dismantle the debilitating debt structure described above

1. Settling Rights & Media Funding: TFG repaid the R&MF facility in full. Crucially, this extinguished the negative pledge covenants, restoring the club’s control over its own assets and allowing it to seek institutional financing.
2. Repaying MSP Sports Capital: The £158 million loan secured against the stadium company was repaid during the exclusivity period, preventing MSP from exercising any option to take control of the stadium asset.
3. The 777/A-CAP Haircut: TFG negotiated a sophisticated settlement regarding the £200 million owed to the collapsed 777 Partners. Due to the fraud allegations and the distressed nature of the debt, TFG secured a significant “haircut” (reduction) on the principal. The settlement involved a cash payment of approximately £66 million (roughly 33 pence on the pound) with the remainder converted into non-voting preferred equity and warrants. This removed the poison pill without TFG having to pay par value for tainted debt.

Balance Sheet restructuring (from takeover to December 2025)

During the takeover, TFG executed a massive accounting cleanup. Farhad Moshiri’s £450 million in shareholder loans were converted into equity and acquired by Roundhouse for a nominal sum.
Subsequently, in December 2025, a capital reduction exercise was performed. The club’s accumulated P&L deficit, which stood at over £650 million, was netted off against the Share Premium account (which had been inflated by the loan-to-equity conversion).
This accounting maneuver did not change the cash position but was vital for regulatory solvency. It wiped out the historic losses from the balance sheet, technically restoring the club to a solvent position and removing the “accumulated losses” that act as a red flag to regulators and lenders.
It also permitted the club to pay shareholders a dividend totalling £44 million arising from proceeds generated by the sale of EFCW (the women’s team) from Everton to Everton’s majority shareholders, Roundhouse Capital.

The JP Morgan refinancing (March 2025)

The stabilisation phase culminated in March 2025 with the announcement of a £350 million long-term financing deal arranged by JP Morgan.

• Structure: This was a private placement of senior secured notes, essentially a long-term mortgage on the stadium.
• Tenure: The debt is structured over 30-40 years, matching the useful life of the stadium asset, contrasting sharply with a maximum 5-year rolling term of the previous R&MF debt.
• Interest Arbitrage: The interest rate on this facility is reported to be less than half of the ~10.25% effective rate paid to R&MF. This refinancing is expected to save the club tens of millions of pounds annually in debt service costs, immediately improving free cash flow.

Future outlook: The Hill Dickinson Stadium era (2025 onward)

As Everton performs in the 2025/26 season, the economic outlook is fundamentally transformed. The move from Goodison Park to the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock represents a shift from a constrained, legacy business model to a modern, high-yield infrastructure model.

Revenue uplift and the “Hill Dickinson” deal

In May 2025, the club announced that the new venue would be named the Hill Dickinson Stadium in a 10-year deal reportedly worth between £6 and £10 million annually. While some fans mocked the name of a commercial law firm adorning the stadium, the deal provided guaranteed, long-term commercial revenue that had been missing since the USM collapse, and closely aligned the stadium with a globally established but local firm.
The revenue uplift from the new stadium is projected to be approximately £50 million per year.29 This is driven by several factors:

• Capacity: An increase to 52,888 seats.
• Hospitality: A massive expansion in corporate facilities, which command vastly higher margins than standard seats.
• Frictionless Spend: The stadium features “Just Walk Out” technology and self-service bars (e.g., EBars), specifically designed to increase the “revenue per cap” (spend per head) by eliminating queues, a major bottleneck at Goodison Park.

The Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) advantage

Under the Premier League’s new financial regulations replacing PSR, clubs are limited to spending a percentage (initially 85%) of their revenue on squad costs (wages + amortisation + agent fees).31
The £50 million revenue uplift from the stadium is critical here. It directly raises the club’s spending ceiling. Furthermore, the decision to outsource catering to Aramark means the club only books the net commission as revenue, which technically lowers the SCR denominator. However, the sheer volume of sales is expected to compensate for this, and the removal of catering staff from the club’s own wage bill aids the ratio calculation.

Conclusion

Between 2020 and 2025, Everton Football Club endured a financial crisis of existential proportions. The reckless spending of the Moshiri era, unmoored from revenue reality and exposed to geopolitical shocks, created a debt burden that nearly resulted in administration in early 2024. The club survived only through high-risk emergency lending and the eventual intervention of The Friedkin Group.
The structural recapitalisation executed in 2025, extinguishing toxic debt, resetting the balance sheet, and securing long-term institutional financing via JP Morgan, has stabilised the club. The Hill Dickinson Stadium provides the revenue engine necessary to sustain this stability. While the legacy of £180 million in losses over three years serves as a stark reminder of the recent past, the financial architecture of Everton in 2025 is more robust, rational, and, for the first time in a decade, sustainable.
Questions remain of course, not least the investment required to improve a desperately thin and largely uncompetitive playing squad. Only when this investment arrives and is utilised correctly will the next phase of the development strategy – regular qualification for European football become a reality rather than an ambition largely based on wishful thinking.