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Independent analytical report: Everton Football Club; Assessment of a prospective sale by the Friedkin Group

Paul Quinn

6th September 2026

Prepared by: Paul Quinn CWTE 

Financial data current to the audited accounts for the year ended 30 June 2025, published 31 March 2026. Market and transaction data current to 6 September 2026.

Statement of independence and basis of reparation

This report has been prepared by Paul Quinn trading through CWTE Limited. It has not been commissioned, funded, reviewed or influenced by The Friedkin Group, Roundhouse Capital Holdings Limited, Everton Football Club Company Limited, any prospective investor in Everton, or any adviser acting for any of those parties.

The author holds no equity, debt, option or economic interest in Everton Football Club, in any entity within The Friedkin Group, or in any party identified in this report as a comparable transaction participant. The author receives no fee, retainer, success payment or other consideration contingent on the occurrence, non-occurrence, pricing or structure of any transaction involving Everton Football Club.

The author is a supporter of Everton Football Club and has published critical analysis of successive Everton ownerships, including that of Farhad Moshiri and that of The Friedkin Group. That affiliation is disclosed so that readers may weigh it. It has not been permitted to shape the conclusions, which follow the evidence and are stated in terms that are, in several instances, unfavourable to the club.

This report favours neither a prospective buyer nor the incumbent seller. Where the evidence supports a conclusion adverse to one side, it is stated plainly.

Purpose and status

This is an analytical report. It is not investment advice, not a fairness opinion, not a valuation prepared to any recognised valuation standard, and not a due diligence report. It has been prepared from public sources only. No party has provided the author with confidential information, management accounts, forecasts, contracts or data-room access. A prospective investor should treat this document as a framework for enquiry, not as a substitute for diligence.

The author is not a regulated investment adviser and this report should not be relied upon as the basis for any investment decision.

Evidential hierarchy

The report distinguishes rigorously between four classes of statement. Readers should attend to which class any given figure belongs to, because the confidence attaching to each differs materially.

Class Definition Treatment in this report
Audited fact Figures drawn from statutory accounts filed at Companies House or from official league or regulatory publications. Stated without qualification. Source and filing date given.
Documented fact Matters of public record that are not financial statements: regulatory decisions, published rules, official club announcements. Stated without qualification. Source given.
Reported figure Figures published by credible media that have not been confirmed by the parties or filed anywhere. Attributed to the reporting outlet and labelled as reported. Where outlets conflict, both figures are given.
Estimate or model output The author’s own calculation, projection or judgement. Labelled as such. Underlying assumptions disclosed in full so that the reader may substitute their own.

Table 1 — Evidential hierarchy applied throughout this report

 Summary

Everton Football Club in September 2026 is a materially different proposition from the club that The Friedkin Group acquired in December 2024. The balance sheet has been recapitalised, the predatory debt has been removed, the regulatory jeopardy has been resolved, and the club plays in a new 52,888-seat stadium that it owns. It is also a thirteenth-placed football team with a squad valued outside the Premier League’s top fourteen, a training ground it does not own, a commercial book written at pre-stadium prices, and a structural annual loss that the new stadium does not close.

Those two sentences contain the whole of the investment case and the whole of the risk. What follows quantifies both.

The report reaches nine conclusions. 

CONCLUSION 1; THERE IS NO CONFIRMED SALE

As at 6 September 2026 no sale of Everton Football Club has been announced, agreed or confirmed. The Financial Times and The Athletic reported on 3 September 2026 that The Friedkin Group is working with advisers to test appetite for a significant minority stake while retaining control. Both the club and The Friedkin Group declined to comment. No mandated bank has been publicly named. The reporting is credible and consistent across two outlets, but it is single-origin in substance and describes an early-stage process that may not conclude.
CONCLUSION 2; THE MOTIVE APPEARS TO BE THE COST OF COMPETING, NOT DISTRESS

The evidence does not support a distress narrative. The Friedkin Group repaid the Rights and Media Funding facility in full, settled the 777 Partners position, arranged a 30-year £350m private placement at institutional pricing, and cleared the club’s legacy regulatory exposure. Dan Friedkin’s personal wealth is reported at approximately $13.4bn. This is not the behaviour of a forced seller.

The more probable reading, consistent with a source quoted by the Financial Times describing the Premier League as “an arms race with more firepower entering the league”, is that the group has concluded the equity cheque required to make Everton competitive is larger than it wishes to write alone. That is a capital-structure judgement, not a retreat. It is also, on the analysis within this report, correct.
CONCLUSION 3;  THE ACQUISITION PERIMETER IS CLEAN, AND THAT IS THE SINGLE MOST VALUABLE FEATURE OF THE ASSET

A buyer entering today acquires a club whose legacy liabilities have been dealt with by someone else. The £450.75m of Moshiri-era shareholder loans were converted to equity. Rights and Media Funding, with its restrictive negative-pledge covenants, was repaid. The 777 Partners and A-Cap exposure of approximately £200m was settled at around 33p in the pound. The Premier League discontinued the outstanding profitability and sustainability charge in January 2025, ending all legacy proceedings.

This clean-up has real economic value. It is the principal reason the club is investable at all.
CONCLUSION 4;  THE STADIUM RAISES REVENUE BY ROUGHLY £35M TO £40M AND RAISES COSTS BY ROUGHLY £50M

This is the most important and least understood point in the entire analysis, and it cuts against the prevailing narrative on both sides of the transaction.

The Hill Dickinson Stadium should lift matchday income from £20.3m to somewhere in the region of £46m to £55m at maturity, with a further £10m to £15m of associated commercial uplift. Against that, once the asset is brought into use two charges that were previously suppressed appear in full: depreciation of approximately £22m to £24m a year on an £813.1m asset, and interest of approximately £30m to £32m a year that was previously capitalised into the construction cost at a rate of £32.3m in FY2024/25 alone.

The stadium is transformative for enterprise value and for competitive positioning. It is close to neutral, and possibly negative, for the reported profit and loss account in its early years. Any business plan that treats the widely-cited “£60m of additional income” as £60m of additional profit is in my opinion wrong.
CONCLUSION 5;  SQUAD COST RATIO, NOT CASH, IS THE BINDING CONSTRAINT ON COMPETITIVENESS

On FY2024/25 audited figures Everton’s squad cost ratio,  wages plus player amortisation plus agent fees, divided by revenue plus net player-trading profit,  was approximately 93%. The Premier League limit from 2026/27 is 85% for clubs outside UEFA competition and 70% for those in it.

Everton therefore cannot spend its way up the table even if a buyer is willing to fund it. Wage growth must be earned through revenue growth and player-trading profit before it can be deployed. This inverts the conventional takeover playbook and pushes the competitive uplift into years three to five. It is the reason the five-year forecast  shows disciplined rather than aggressive wage expansion.
CONCLUSION 6;  THE COMMERCIAL CEILING IS SET BY THE LIVERPOOL ECONOMY AND BY LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB

Liverpool City Region gross value added per resident is approximately £27,500, around 74% of the United Kingdom level, and the gap has widened since 2010. Close to a third of City Region neighbourhoods sit in England’s most deprived decile, concentrated in precisely the north Liverpool wards surrounding the stadium. Few large corporates are headquartered in the region.

Everton also competes for local sponsorship and corporate hospitality with a Champions League club in the same city whose reported valuation exceeds £5bn. Everton is structurally the second commercial proposition in its own market. This does not prevent commercial growth, the existing book is demonstrably below market, but it caps the realistic terminal commercial revenue well below the level a comparable stadium in London or the West Midlands would command.
CONCLUSION 7;  THE INFRASTRUCTURE AROUND THE ASSET IS MATERIALLY INCOMPLETE

The stadium is excellent. What surrounds it is not. There is no dedicated rail station; Sandhills requires a walk of approximately 15 minutes and dedicated access funding of around £4.2m is not allocated until 2027. The Liverpool Waters regeneration that was to provide the surrounding urban fabric has moved slowly. There is no integrated retail, leisure or commercial estate of the kind that generates non-matchday income at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and Liverpool’s premium hotel stock is thin relative to the corporate demand a 52,888-seat venue is capable of generating.

Separately, Finch Farm is owned by Liverpool City Council and leased back to the club. It is dated relative to peers. Replacement at 2026 prices is estimated in this report at £80m to £100m and is not optional if the club intends to compete for players with Newcastle, Aston Villa or Brighton.
CONCLUSION 8;  THE FIVE-YEAR FUNDING REQUIREMENT IS APPROXIMATELY £444M, IN ADDITION TO THE PURCHASE PRICE

My forecast shows cumulative pre-tax losses of approximately £351m over the five years to FY2029/30 on a Squad Cost Ratio-compliant plan. The cash requirement, which is the number that matters to an investor, is a gross outflow of approximately £523m, net player capital expenditure, cash interest, infrastructure investment including the training ground, and scheduled debt amortisation, offset by modest EBITDA, or approximately £444m net of the £79.1m of cash on the balance sheet.

This is the central finding of the report. Everton is not a club that requires a purchase price and then runs itself. It requires a purchase price and then approximately the same amount again over five years.
CONCLUSION 9;  EQUITY VALUE SITS IN A RANGE OF APPROXIMATELY £310M TO £490M, AND THE FRIEDKIN GROUP IS NOT SITTING ON AN OBVIOUS GAIN

On an enterprise value of approximately £700m to £880m, 3.0 to 3.8 times estimated FY2025/26 revenue, a premium to the historic two-times multiple for non-top-six clubs that is justified by the owned new-build stadium, less net debt of approximately £389.4m, equity value falls in a range of approximately £310m to £490m, with a central estimate of approximately £400m.

Roundhouse Capital’s reported equity acquisition cost was approximately £231m, with additional capital inputs bringing the total to £400m. On the central estimate the group is breakeven on paper and materially ahead only if the stadium’s first full year performs at the upper end. That is consistent with seeking minority capital at a fair price rather than exiting at a premium, and a buyer should not price this transaction on the assumption that the seller is desperate.

The transaction in one table

Question posed Answer on the evidence
What is for sale? On current reporting, a significant minority stake with The Friedkin Group retaining control. Not a control transaction.
What does a buyer acquire? 99.5% chain into Everton FC Co Ltd, a 52,888-seat owned stadium, the Everton brand fair-valued at £240m, and a squad with a book value of £96.9m.
What does a buyer assume? Total borrowings of £468.5m at 30 June 2025, of which £350m is a 30-year private placement to 2055 secured on the stadium.
What is the revenue base? £196.7m audited FY2024/25. Estimated £232m FY2025/26. Modelled £300m by FY2029/30.
What is the loss? £8.6m statutory FY2024/25, but £57.8m excluding a £49.2m internal asset-sale profit. The underlying figure is the relevant one.
What is the constraint? Squad Cost Ratio of approximately 93% against an 85% limit from 2026/27. Regulatory, not financial.
What is the five-year cost? Approximately £444m of net cash funding in addition to the purchase price.
What is it worth? Equity value of approximately £310m to £490m; central estimate approximately £400m. Enterprise value approximately £700m to £880m.
What is the upside case? Below-market commercial contracts repricing, matchday maturity toward the Newcastle benchmark, European qualification, and academy trading profit.
What is the downside case? Relegation. On the modelled cost base it would be an extinction-level event for equity value, notwithstanding parachute payments.

Table 2, Summary of findings. Each row is developed and sourced in the sections that follow.

The prospective transaction:

The reporting of 3 September 2026

On 3 September 2026 the Financial Times and The Athletic reported that The Friedkin Group had engaged advisers to sound out investors regarding an equity stake in Everton Football Club. The reporting characterised the process as early-stage, as most likely to result in new shareholders holding a significant minority rather than control, and as capable of failing to conclude. The Friedkin Group and Everton Football Club both declined to comment.

Two features of that reporting deserve emphasis. First, no investment bank has been publicly named as holding the mandate. This is a meaningful absence: in the 2022 Chelsea process the appointment of the Raine Group was public from an early stage and became the organising fact around which the market formed. Its absence here is consistent with a genuinely exploratory process rather than a launched sale. Second, the reporting did not attach a valuation, a stake size, or a timetable. Any figure circulating on those points is inference, not reporting.

What the Friedkin Group has already done with its equity

The current process is not the group’s first widening of its ownership base, and reading it as a novel departure would be a mistake. During 2025 Christopher Sarofim took a holding described as significant and in excess of 9.9% in Roundhouse Capital, and Jason Kidd also took an equity interest. In July the group launched Pursuit Sports, led by the former Fenway Sports Group and Clearlake executive Dave Beeston, as the vehicle housing its football clubs.

The pattern is one of assembling a broader capital base around a retained controlling position. The September 2026 reporting is consistent with a continuation of that pattern. It is not, on the available evidence, consistent with an exit, although it can not be excluded completely.

Group-level context and the multi-club question

The Friedkin Group holds approximately 96% of AS Roma, acquired in August 2020 at an enterprise value of approximately €591m, into which Calcio e Finanza calculates approximately €1.048bn had been injected by mid-2025. It also owns AS Cannes in the French fourth tier, alongside Gulf States Toyota, Auberge Resorts and Imperative Entertainment. Roma qualified for the 2026 Champions League.

If Roma and Everton were ever to qualify for the same UEFA competition, Article 5 of the UEFA club competition regulations would require the group to specifically isolate the management of both clubs from each other, with the arrangement filed by 1 March of the relevant year. This is a live constraint that has so far been managed and does not presently bind. A prospective investor should nonetheless understand that Everton’s European qualification, the principal upside event in the financial model,  is the event that also triggers the group’s multi-club problem. Those two facts are in tension and a buyer should ask how the group intends to resolve it.

WHERE THE EVIDENCE RUNS OUT

The following are not known and should not be assumed: the identity of any mandated adviser; the size of the stake being marketed; any valuation being sought or discussed; whether governance or board rights attach to the stake; whether any party has been approached or has expressed interest; and whether The Friedkin Group would entertain a control transaction at a sufficient price.

What a buyer acquires: Corporate structure and assets

Everton Football Club Company Limited sits beneath Roundhouse Capital Holdings Limited, which holds 99.7% which in turn is owned by Toffee Investments LLC of Houston, Texas. Dan Friedkin is registered as the Person with Significant Control at the 75% or greater threshold. The residual 0.3% is held by legacy minority shareholders whose holdings were heavily diluted by the December 2024 recapitalisation.

That dilution deserves a neutral note. The conversion of £450.75m of shareholder loans into 150,250 new ordinary shares, and the issue of 1,336,537 new shares to Roundhouse for £233.4m, took called-up share capital from £135,000 to £1,622,000. Legacy minority holders were not offered participation on equivalent terms. Whatever view is taken of the commercial necessity, the effect on those holders was a substantial destruction of proportionate interest, and any prospective investor acquiring a minority position should understand the precedent that establishes regarding minority protection in this structure.

The December 2024 transaction

The Friedkin Group completed on 19 December 2024, with the change of control dated 18 December 2024 in the statutory accounts. 

A balance-sheet manoeuvre accompanied the transaction that a buyer should understand. The share premium account of £1,004.1m was applied to offset the accumulated profit and loss deficit of approximately £650.2m, a legal prerequisite for the payment of future dividends. A dividend of approximately £20 per share, paid to minority holders, was subsequently proposed and funded after the internal asset-sale profit of the women’s team and Goodison Park. 

The board

Marc Watts serves as executive chairman. Angus Kinnear joined as chief executive on 1 June 2025 from Leeds United. Dan Friedkin is a director and proposed chairman. The board also includes the group figures Eric Williamson, Analaura Moreira-Dunkel as group chief financial officer, Colin Chong as chief real estate and regeneration officer. The director of football Kevin Thelwell departed at the end of 2024/25 and was replaced by a sports leadership team model rather than a single successor. The chief commercial and communications officer Richard Kenyon also departed.

The commercial and football leadership of the club has therefore turned over substantially within eighteen months. For a buyer this cuts both ways: institutional memory has been lost, but so has the recruitment apparatus responsible for the 2016 to 2022 transfer record.

The asset base

Asset Position Buyer consideration
Hill Dickinson Stadium, Bramley-Moore Dock Owned. Capacity 52,888. Cumulative cost stated at £813.1m; tangible fixed assets £815.0m. Euro 2028 host venue. The core asset and the entire value thesis. Secured against the £350m private placement.
Stadium naming rights Hill Dickinson, announced May 2025. Reported at £10m per year over ten years by the Telegraph and SportsPro; approximately £6m plus add-ons per the author’s own sourcing. Materially disputed. A buyer must verify in diligence. The gap is worth up to £40m over the term.
Goodison Park Retained. The women’s team relocated permanently from 2025/26. Sold internally to the parent together with Everton Women, generating the £49.2m profit. Residual development optionality, but the internal sale has already crystallised the accounting gain.
Finch Farm training ground Owned by Liverpool City Council since 2013, purchased for approximately £12.9m, leased back on a 40-year lease. Not owned by the club. Dated. Estimated £80m–£100m to replace. See Section 12.
Brand Fair-valued at £240.0m on acquisition using a relief-from-royalty method. An acquisition-accounting artefact, not a realisable asset. Do not underwrite it.
Player registrations Net book value £96.9m at 30 June 2025. Fair-valued at £479.9m at acquisition. The gap between the two figures reflects purchase price allocation, not market value.

Table 3;  Asset perimeter. Sources: statutory accounts to 30 June 2025; Companies House; club announcements; media reporting as attributed.

Debt and change of control

The transformation of Everton’s liabilities between 2023 and 2025 is the most consequential thing that has happened to the club financially in a decade, and it is the reason a prospective investor is looking at Everton at all rather than at a distressed restructuring.

The position at 30 June 2025

Instrument Quantum Status and terms
Total borrowings, consolidated £468.5m Down from £593.8m at the prior year end.
payable within one year £127.6m JP Morgan revolving credit facility and short-term borrowings.
payable after five years £341.0m The stadium private placement.
Stadium private placement £350.0m Arranged by JP Morgan, February 2025. Thirty-year term maturing 30 June 2055. Held in Everton Stadium Development Limited. Secured on the stadium.
JP Morgan revolving credit facility c. £127.6m drawn Five-year facility. Working capital.
Rights and Media Funding  Repaid Repaid in full December 2024. Restrictive negative-pledge covenants extinguished.
777 Partners / A-Cap Settled Approximately £200m settled for approximately £66m cash, around 33p in the pound, plus non-voting preferred equity and warrants.
Moshiri / Bluesky shareholder loans £450.75m Converted to equity December 2024. Non-cash. Interest-free and unsecured prior to conversion.
Cash at bank £79.1m Asset. Netted in the valuation

Table 4 ; Debt stack at 30 June 2025. Source: statutory accounts filed 31 March 2026; club announcements.

Effective interest rates on the JP Morgan instruments are reported at less than half the 15% to 20% range that characterised the Rights and Media Funding and 777 Partners facilities. On borrowings of the scale Everton carried through 2023 and 2024, that spread compression is worth in the region of £30m to £50m a year in avoided interest. It is the single largest value transfer The Friedkin Group has effected, it has already been captured, and a buyer entering now pays for it rather than earning it.

The removal of the Rights and Media Funding negative pledge is a second, less visible benefit. That covenant constrained the club’s ability to grant security over assets and therefore constrained its financing options generally. Its removal is what made the £350m private placement possible.

Change of control

A buyer acquiring today would inherit the JP Morgan facilities, which are secured against the stadium, and the preferred equity and warrants issued to settle the 777 Partners position. The Rights and Media Funding facility and the Moshiri shareholder loans no longer exist and are not a consideration.

AN UNRESOLVED DILIGENCE POINT

The change-of-control terms attaching to the £350m private placement and the JP Morgan revolving credit facility are not in the public domain. Private placements of this kind commonly contain change-of-control put options entitling noteholders to require prepayment at par plus a make-whole amount.

If such a provision exists and is triggered by a change of control, a control transaction could require the refinancing of £350m of thirty-year debt priced in early 2025 into a 2026 or 2027 rate environment. That is a material and quantifiable risk to the economics of any control bid and it should be the first question asked in diligence.

Note that this risk does not arise, or arises only at a higher threshold, on a minority stake that leaves The Friedkin Group in control, which is a further reason the reported minority structure may be the intended one rather than a fallback.

Current financial position

The audited result for the year ended 30 June 2025

The accounts were filed on 31 March 2026 and cover the year to 30 June 2025, the final season at Goodison Park. They therefore describe the club immediately before the stadium change and constitute the baseline against which everything in this report is projected.

Line FY2024/25 Note
Turnover £196.7m Record. Prior year £187.3m.
— Broadcasting £129.2m Flat year on year. 16 live UK selections against 23 prior year.
— Gate receipts £20.3m Final Goodison season. Capacity constrained at approximately 39,000.
— Sponsorship and merchandising £24.3m
— Other commercial £22.9m
Wages and salaries (£152.1m) 77.3% of turnover headline; 74% adjusted by the club for outsourced retail and catering.
Other operating costs excluding depreciation (£63.2m) Derived by the author from disclosed totals. See methodology note.
EBITDA (£18.6m) Author’s calculation.
Amortisation of player registrations (£50.9m) Down from £64.6m.
Depreciation (£5.0m) Author’s estimate. Pre-stadium.
Operating loss (£74.5m) Author’s calculation.
Profit on disposal of player registrations £31.3m Net player trading negative £19.6m.
Exceptional profit on internal disposal £49.2m Sale of Goodison Park and Everton Women to the parent.
Interest payable (£14.6m) A further £32.3m of borrowing costs was capitalised into the stadium.
Loss for the year (£8.6m) Prior year loss £53.2m.
Underlying loss excluding exceptional (£57.8m) The relevant figure for forecasting purposes.

Table 5  Profit and loss account, year ended 30 June 2025. Disclosed figures from the statutory accounts; derived and estimated lines identified in the Note column.

The accounts disclose turnover, its four components, wages, amortisation, profit on player disposals, interest payable and the loss for the year. They do not separately disclose other operating costs or depreciation in the form used above.

Other operating costs including depreciation have been derived as a residual: turnover of £196.7m plus player disposal profit of £31.3m plus exceptional profit of £49.2m, less interest of £14.6m, less the loss of £8.6m, gives total operating costs of £271.2m; deducting wages of £152.1m and amortisation of £50.9m leaves £68.2m. Depreciation of approximately £5.0m has been estimated within that figure on the basis of the pre-stadium asset base, leaving other operating costs of approximately £63.2m.

This derivation is arithmetically sound but the £5.0m depreciation split is an estimate and the EBITDA and operating loss figures inherit that uncertainty. They are presented to make the forecast in later in this report comparable, not as audited figures.

 

The headline loss of £8.6m against a prior year loss of £53.2m reads as a dramatic improvement. It is not. £49.2m of the improvement is a profit on the sale of Goodison Park and Everton Women to the parent company, an internal transaction that moved assets within the group and generated no external cash. Excluding it, the underlying loss was £57.8m, which is a modest deterioration on the prior year underlying position.

A buyer should note that this is not an Everton peculiarity but a Premier League norm in the current regulatory environment. Newcastle United’s reported FY2024/25 pre-tax profit of £34.7m and Aston Villa’s of approximately £17m were driven by intra-group asset sales of approximately £133m and £114m respectively; their underlying losses were approximately £98m and £97m. The manoeuvre is a response to profitability and sustainability constraints. Its prevalence means that peer comparison must be conducted on underlying figures throughout, and this report does so.

The Moshiri era in context

Farhad Moshiri invested over £750m in transfer fees and converted £450.75m of loans to equity before exiting. Losses across the period were substantial, £139.9m in FY2019/20 alone, with approximately £430m cumulative to 2023 cited during the 777 Partners process. The significance for a buyer is not historical interest but calibration: this is a club with a demonstrated capacity to absorb very large sums without a corresponding improvement in competitive position..

Group-level position

Roundhouse Capital Holdings reported consolidated net assets of £219.1m. Everton Football Club Company Limited reported shareholders’ funds of £393.3m. The difference reflects acquisition accounting at the holding company level. Neither figure is a valuation and neither should be treated as one.

Regulatory position: PSR, Squad Cost Ratio and the Regulator

The legacy position is closed

Everton was deducted ten points in November 2023 for a breach of the profitability and sustainability rules in the period to 2021/22, reduced to six on appeal in February 2024, and a further two points for the period to 2022/23. Against a permitted loss limit of £105m over three years, the cumulative loss to 2022/23 was £124.5m, a breach of £19.5m in the first case. Burnley subsequently succeeded in a compensation claim reported at approximately £40m (which is still subject to appeal), and Leeds United and Leicester City pursued claims, with a combined figure of approximately £300m mooted at one stage.

In January 2025 the Premier League discontinued the outstanding charge concerning the capitalisation of stadium interest, ending all legacy proceedings. A buyer acquires a club with no live regulatory jeopardy from the prior era. The residual quantum of any remaining Leeds or Leicester liability is not in the public domain and is a diligence item.

The Squad Cost Ratio is the constraint that matters

From 2026/27 the Premier League moves to a Squad Cost Ratio regime. The permitted ratio is 85% for clubs not in UEFA competition and 70% for those that are. The numerator comprises player and head coach wages, player amortisation and agent fees. The denominator comprises revenue plus net profit on player disposals.

Applying that definition to Everton’s audited FY2024/25 figures, with agent fees estimated at approximately £9m:

Squad Cost Ratio components, FY2024/25 Amount Basis
Wages and salaries £152.1m Audited
Amortisation of player registrations £50.9m Audited
Agent fees (estimated) £9.0m Author’s estimate
Numerator: total squad cost £212.0m Calculated
Revenue £196.7m Audited
Net profit on player disposals £31.3m Audited
Denominator £228.0m Calculated
Squad Cost Ratio 93.0% Against an 85% limit
Headroom (£18.2m) Deficit, not headroom

Table 6;  Squad Cost Ratio calculation on FY2024/25 audited figures. Agent fees are an author’s estimate; the ratio is sensitive to that assumption by approximately 0.4 percentage points per £1m.

Everton entered the Squad Cost Ratio era approximately eight percentage points, or approximately £18m of annual squad cost, outside the permitted limit. Transitional arrangements apply, but the direction of travel is unambiguous.

This means a buyer cannot deploy capital into wages at will. Additional squad spending must be preceded by revenue growth or by player-trading profit. The practical effect is that the competitive uplift a buyer is paying for cannot be delivered in years one and two; it can only be delivered in years three to five, after the stadium revenue has matured and after the academy and trading model have begun to generate disposal profits.

A second consequence is that Everton’s outsourced retail and catering model, which suppresses recognised revenue, also suppresses the Squad Cost Ratio denominator and therefore the permitted spend. Bringing those operations in-house would raise both revenue and cost but would expand the regulatory ceiling. That is a genuine and underappreciated strategic lever and it should be modelled by any prospective investor.

The Independent Football Regulator

The Football Governance Act 2025 came into force in July 2025. The regulator’s powers commenced on 1 November 2025, incumbent owner and director rules from 12 December 2025, prospective owner and senior executive tests from approximately 5 May 2026, and the licensing regime from autumn 2026.

Any change of control now requires the approval of the Independent Football Regulator in addition to Premier League approval. The regulator’s test covers integrity, financial soundness and source of wealth, and is modelled on the Financial Conduct Authority’s Senior Managers Regime. It applies to holders of more than 25% and to any party with significant influence. Approval can take up to five months.

For a prospective minority investor the practical implications are threefold. A stake below 25% without significant influence may fall outside the test, which is itself an argument for structuring below that threshold. A stake above it will require full source-of-wealth disclosure. And any transaction timetable must accommodate a regulatory process that did not exist when The Friedkin Group acquired the club in December 2024, the group itself was approved under the previous regime, and a buyer should not assume its own approval will be as straightforward.

Broadcasting

The 2025 to 2029 United Kingdom domestic broadcasting deal is worth a record £6.7bn over four years, with Sky taking four of five packages and a minimum of 215 matches a season, TNT the fifth with 52 games, and the BBC retaining free-to-air highlights. Live rights value rose approximately 4%. International rights of approximately £6.5bn exceeded domestic value for the first time, taking the total cycle to approximately £12.25bn, an increase of 17%.

Everton’s FY2024/25 broadcasting revenue was flat at £129.2m despite that growth, because the club received sixteen live United Kingdom selections against twenty-three in the prior year. This illustrates the specific exposure of a mid-table club: central distributions rise with the cycle, but merit payments and facility fees fall with performance and with broadcaster interest. The later  forecast treats broadcasting as performance-linked rather than as a fixed escalator, which is the conservative and correct approach.

The Hill Dickinson Stadium

The stadium is the reason this asset is interesting. It is also the reason the analysis is more complicated than it first appears.

The asset

The Hill Dickinson Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock has a capacity of 52,888 and a cumulative cost stated at £813.1m in the statutory accounts, against tangible fixed assets of £815.0m. It is owned by the club and secured against the £350m private placement. It is a confirmed host venue for the European Championship in 2028. The first non-football event staged was the Rugby League Ashes.

In its first season the stadium averaged an attendance of 52,132, with a high of 52,590 against Sunderland, effectively sold out. That is the strongest single piece of evidence in the entire investment case: demand is not the constraint.

A DISPUTED FIGURE

The cumulative cost of £813.1m stated in the accounts has been challenged publicly on the basis that prior filings imply a figure in the range of approximately £844m to £852m. The discrepancy has not been reconciled in the public domain.

The difference of £30m to £40m is not material to a valuation that proceeds on a revenue multiple, but it is material to any asset-based approach and to the depreciation charge, which is why this report models depreciation as a range rather than a point estimate.

The revenue opportunity, quantified

The relevant benchmark is Newcastle United, which is the closest structural comparator: a large, well-supported, non-London club with a capacity in the low fifty thousands and no Champions League revenue base. Newcastle generated matchday revenue of £51.6m in FY2024/25, ranking seventh in the Premier League, at a yield of £43.64 per attendee.

Everton’s FY2024/25 gate receipts were £20.3m from a capacity of approximately 39,000 at Goodison Park. The capacity uplift alone is 36%. Applying the Newcastle yield to Everton’s realised attendance of 52,132 across nineteen home league fixtures plus cup fixtures suggests a mature matchday figure in the region of £46m to £55m, depending on pricing policy, hospitality take-up and cup progression.

This report models matchday revenue of £46.0m in FY2025/26 rising to £60.0m by FY2029/30. That trajectory is deliberately below the theoretical maximum because I estimate that the Liverpool corporate hospitality market is thinner than the Tyneside or West Midlands equivalents, and premium yield is the component most sensitive to that.

 Non-matchday utilisation

Euro 2028 host status is confirmed and will generate a one-off fee and, more importantly, a global broadcast showcase. The Rugby League Ashes demonstrated event capability. Concert and conference revenue is the standard route to non-matchday income for a stadium of this scale.

The honest assessment is that the evidence base here is thin. No confirmed multi-year concert programme is in the public domain. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium generates substantial non-matchday income because it was designed with an NFL tenancy, a dedicated events business and a surrounding commercial estate. The Hill Dickinson Stadium has none of those three. This report therefore models non-matchday income conservatively within the commercial line and does not treat it as a distinct value driver. A buyer with genuine events expertise might reasonably take a more optimistic view; that would be a judgement about their own capability, not about the asset.

The cost side that the opportunity narrative omits

THE TWO CHARGES THAT APPEAR WHEN THE STADIUM COMES INTO USE

Depreciation. An asset of £813.1m depreciated over a blended life reflecting a long-lived structure and shorter-lived fit-out generates a charge estimated in this report at £22m to £24m a year. In FY2024/25 this charge was substantially absent because the asset was under construction.

Interest. In FY2024/25 the club charged £14.6m of interest to the profit and loss account and capitalised a further £32.3m into the cost of the stadium. Capitalisation ceases when an asset is brought into use. From FY2025/26 the full cost of the borrowings appears in the profit and loss account, estimated in this report at £30m to £32m a year.

The combined effect is an increase in charges below EBITDA of approximately £48m to £52m a year against a revenue uplift of approximately £35m to £40m. The stadium is therefore, on these estimates, negative to reported profit in its early years and becomes positive only as commercial contracts reprice and matchday yield matures.

This is not an argument against the stadium. It is transformative for enterprise value, for competitive relevance and for long-run cash generation once the debt amortises. It is an argument against the widely-repeated proposition that the move delivers approximately £60m of additional income and therefore approximately £60m of improvement. It does not.

The Hill Dickinson Stadium: Supporting infrastructure weaknesses

A stadium is a node in a network. Everton has built an excellent node into a weak network, and the gap between the two is where a material part of the theoretical revenue opportunity is lost.

 Transport

There is no dedicated rail station serving Bramley-Moore Dock. Sandhills on the Merseyrail network is the nearest viable station and requires a walk of approximately 15 minutes. Dedicated access improvement funding of approximately £4.2m associated with Sandhills is not allocated until 2027. Road capacity into the north docks corridor is constrained, parking provision is limited by design, and the pedestrian routes from the city centre and from Sandhills are long and exposed.

The consequences are specific and financial rather than merely inconvenient. Premium and corporate customers are the most sensitive segment to access friction, and premium yield is the single largest component of the matchday revenue gap between Everton and the clubs it wishes to match. Poor access also constrains the viability of midweek concerts and conferences, which depend on late-evening egress. And it caps the realistic scheduling of the venue for events that would otherwise use it.

The surrounding estate

The Liverpool Waters masterplan promoted by Peel Land and Property was to provide the surrounding urban fabric, residential, commercial, hotel and leisure development across the northern docks. Progress has been slow relative to the original programme. The practical result is that the stadium sits in a substantially undeveloped setting.

The comparison that matters is Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which is embedded in a development scheme that generates year-round footfall, retail income, and a hotel and events business that monetise the asset on the roughly 320 days a year when no football is played. Everton has the stadium without the estate. A buyer should regard the surrounding land as an opportunity requiring further capital and a decade of patience, not as an asset in place.

Hotel and hospitality capacity

Liverpool’s premium hotel stock is thin relative to the corporate and touring demand that a 52,888-seat venue with Euro 2028 status is capable of generating. This constrains the ability to sell multi-day corporate packages and international travel packages at the yields achieved by London clubs and, increasingly, by Manchester and Birmingham venues.

Finch Farm

The training ground is not owned by the club. Liverpool City Council purchased it in 2013 for approximately £12.9m and leases it back on a forty-year lease, having previously charged rent of approximately £1.4m a year. The facility is dated by the standards of the clubs Everton must now recruit against.

This is a competitive problem before it is a financial one. Training facilities are a material factor in player and coach recruitment and in academy retention. Section 12 costs the replacement.

The Liverpool economy and the commercial ceiling

This section sets out the structural constraint that no amount of capital or management skill can remove, and which any credible business plan must accept rather than assume away.

The regional economic base

Gross value added per resident in the Liverpool City Region is approximately £27,500, around 74% of the United Kingdom level. The gap has widened since 2010 rather than narrowed. Close to one third of City Region neighbourhoods fall within England’s most deprived decile, and that deprivation is concentrated in north Liverpool — the Vauxhall and Kirkdale wards immediately surrounding the stadium,  together with east Wirral, south Sefton and north Knowsley.

Two distinct commercial consequences follow. The first concerns matchday pricing: the immediate catchment has limited capacity to absorb premium price increases, which constrains general admission yield and, more acutely, the depth of the mid-tier hospitality market that sits between general admission and executive boxes. The second concerns business-to-business sales: relatively few large corporates are headquartered in the region, which thins the local sponsorship and corporate hospitality market at source.

The competitive shadow of Liverpool Football Club

Everton is the second commercial proposition in its own city, and the gap is not narrow. Liverpool Football Club is a Champions League participant with reported valuations in excess of £5bn and a global commercial reach that Everton cannot approach. Every local corporate sponsorship conversation, every corporate hospitality budget in the region, and to a degree every recruitment conversation with players and executives, takes place in that shadow.

This is not a reason to discount the asset to zero, Everton has a loyal and large support base, demonstrated by near-capacity attendance in the first stadium season, and a distinct identity. It is a reason to set the terminal commercial revenue assumption materially below what an equivalent stadium would generate in London, and below what Newcastle achieves as the unchallenged club in a comparable regional market. Newcastle’s commercial advantage over Everton is not primarily a function of ownership; it is a function of monopoly in its region.

Benchmark position

The following comparison is presented on the most recent available basis for each club. Note the caution previously stated regarding reported profits: the wage and revenue lines are the reliable comparison, not the profit lines.

Club Revenue Wage bill Wages / revenue Basis
Aston Villa £378m £273m c. 72% FY2024/25 audited
Newcastle United £335m £243m 72.6% FY2024/25 audited
West Ham United £228m £176m c. 77% FY2024/25 reported
Brighton & Hove Albion £222.4m £164.6m 68% FY2024/25 audited
Nottingham Forest £222m £168m 76% FY2024/25 audited
Everton £196.7m £152.1m 77.3% FY2024/25 audited
Crystal Palace £189.2m £133.7m 71% FY2023/24 audited
Fulham £182m c. £155m c. 85% FY2023/24 audited
Brentford £166.5m £114.4m 69% FY2023/24 audited

Table 7;  Peer benchmarks. Sources: statutory accounts; Swiss Ramble analysis. Basis years differ; comparisons should be treated as indicative rather than exact.

The position this table describes is unambiguous. Everton’s revenue is sixth of the nine listed and its wages-to-revenue ratio is the second highest. It is spending at close to the limit of what it earns while earning less than the clubs it must displace. The stadium closes part of the revenue gap. It does not close the gap to Aston Villa or Newcastle, which is approximately £140m to £180m of annual revenue and is not bridgeable within five years by any plausible operating plan.

Commercial contracts

The commercial book is where the clearest identifiable value creation opportunity sits, and it is also where the public information is weakest.

The current position

Category Position Assessment
Stadium naming rights Hill Dickinson, announced May 2025, ten-year term. Reported at £10m per year by the Telegraph and SportsPro; approximately £6m plus performance add-ons per the author’s sourcing. Materially disputed. Even at the higher figure this is modest for a new-build 52,888-seat Premier League stadium with Euro 2028 status.
Front of shirt Stake.com for four seasons; CMC Markets from 2026/27 following the Premier League gambling front-of-shirt prohibition, with Stake moving to the sleeve. The regulatory change forced a renegotiation at a point when the club had limited leverage. Value not publicly disclosed.
Kit supply Castore, in contract. Term and value not publicly disclosed. A diligence item.
Other partners Red Bull, Nemiroff and Corpay signed or renewed during FY2024/25. Evidence of a functioning commercial operation, but at second-tier values.
Retail and catering Outsourced. Suppresses recognised revenue and, critically, suppresses the Squad Cost Ratio denominator. 

Table 8;  Commercial contracts. Contract expiry dates are not in the public domain and constitute a significant data gap.

The repricing thesis and its limits

The core commercial argument for the asset is straightforward. A substantial part of the current book was negotiated while Everton played at Goodison Park, faced regulatory sanction, and was owned by a distressed vendor. Those contracts are priced accordingly. As they expire, they can be re-let against a new stadium, a stable ownership and a clean regulatory record.

The argument is sound and this report accepts it, modelling commercial revenue growing from £47.2m in FY2024/25 to approximately £88m by FY2029/30. Three qualifications are necessary and a buyer should insist on all three being tested.

First, the repricing depends on expiry dates that are not public. If the major contracts run to 2029 or 2030, the uplift falls outside the five-year window a buyer is underwriting. This is the single most important commercial diligence question and it is unanswerable from outside the club.

Second, the ceiling on repricing. A below-market contract reprices to market, and Everton’s market is the Liverpool market. The naming-rights outcome is instructive: a new stadium of this scale in a stronger corporate geography would be expected to command materially more than either the £10m or the £6m figure in circulation.

Third, the CMC Markets front-of-shirt arrangement was concluded under regulatory compulsion following the gambling prohibition, at a moment of limited negotiating leverage. It is unlikely to represent the ceiling of what the position could command in an open process, but it also locks in a value for a period.

Competitive position as a football club

Where the team actually is

Everton finished thirteenth in 2024/25 and thirteenth again in 2025/26 with 49 points and 47 goals, matching the pre-season Opta projection of 48.42 expected points almost exactly. The club reached eighth place on 40 points with ten games remaining in 2025/26 before failing to win any of its final seven fixtures, which ended any realistic European qualification.

That sequence is worth dwelling on. A squad that models to forty-eight points and delivers forty-nine is performing to its resource level, not underperforming it. The failure to convert a strong position into European qualification was a squad-depth failure, which is a capital problem rather than a coaching problem. David Moyes, who returned on 11 January 2025, has stabilised the club; the evidence does not suggest that a change of manager is the lever that moves Everton up the table.

The squad

Transfermarkt values the squad at approximately £285m to £319m depending on the snapshot date relative to the transfer window, which places it around fifteenth in the Premier League. Net book value of player registrations in the accounts was £96.9m at 30 June 2025. Everton recorded negative net transfer spend in summer 2026, one of only six Premier League clubs to do so, despite having moved into the new stadium.

That last fact is the most revealing datum in this section. A club that has just opened a £813m stadium, that has been recapitalised, and whose analysts calculate an additional £60m of annual income, spent net negative in the following window. Section 6.2 explains why: the Squad Cost Ratio, not the owner’s willingness, is the binding constraint.

Football operations

Kevin Thelwell departed as director of football at the end of 2024/25 and was replaced by a sports leadership team structure rather than a single successor. The academy holds Category One status. Academy graduates are of disproportionate value under both the profitability and sustainability rules and the Squad Cost Ratio, because a homegrown player carries no acquisition cost and therefore no amortisation, while a disposal generates pure accounting profit that flows directly into the Squad Cost Ratio denominator.

THE STRATEGIC IMPLICATION OF THE ACADEMY UNDER SQUAD COST RATIO

Under the Squad Cost Ratio, an academy graduate sold for £25m adds approximately £25m to the denominator and nothing to the numerator. At an 85% ratio, that single transaction expands the permitted squad cost by approximately £21m.

For a club structurally constrained at the ratio, as Everton is, academy production is not a nice-to-have or a cultural preference. It is the primary mechanism available for expanding the regulatory ceiling on competitive spending.

This report therefore treats academy and recruitment investment as the highest-return category of capital expenditure available to a prospective owner, ahead of first-team transfer spending, and models player-trading profit rising from £30m in FY2025/26 to £50m by FY2029/30 on that basis.

 

The historical recruitment failure

Between 2016 and 2022 Everton deployed over £750m of transfer expenditure and finished, on average, in the lower half of the Premier League. That is among the worst capital-efficiency records in modern European football. A prospective investor should be satisfied that the causes were structural, an absence of recruitment governance, serial managerial change, and owner-led signings, and that they have been addressed, rather than assuming that a new stadium and a clean balance sheet are sufficient. The turnover of football and commercial leadership described earlier is evidence of change but not yet evidence of improvement.

Investment required to become competitive

This section answers the question directly: what would it cost to move Everton from thirteenth to sustained top-eight and periodic European qualification?

The wage benchmark

The clubs occupying sixth to eighth place in recent seasons operate wage bills in the range of approximately £164m to £176m; Brighton at £164.6m, Nottingham Forest at £168m, West Ham at £176m, while the clubs that have converted spending into sustained European qualification, Aston Villa at £273m and Newcastle at £243m, sit far above that.

Everton’s FY2024/25 wage bill was £152.1m. The gap to the top-eight cohort is therefore approximately £15m to £25m a year, and the gap to genuine and sustained European qualification is approximately £90m to £120m a year. The first is reachable. The second is not, within five years, without a revenue base that does not exist and cannot be built that quickly.

THE REALISTIC COMPETITIVE TARGET

On the evidence in this report, the achievable competitive outcome over five years is sustained finishing in the eighth to eleventh range with periodic qualification for the Europa Conference League or Europa League, not sustained Champions League participation.

A business plan predicated on reaching the Champions League within five years is not supportable on these figures and a board should treat any such plan presented by a vendor or a promoter with scepticism.

The infrastructure and capability requirement

The conclusion of this section is that approximately £200m of non-squad investment is required over five years, of which the training ground at £80m to £100m is the largest single item and the least discretionary. Combined with the squad requirement and the funding of losses, this produces the total capital requirement quantified later in the report.

Investment category Estimated cost Basis and rationale
Training ground: replace or comprehensively rebuild Finch Farm £80m – £100m Benchmarked against Brighton at Lancing (approximately £30m–£32m, 2014), Tottenham Hotspur Way (approximately £45m, 2012) and Leicester at Seagrave (approximately £100m, 2020), uplifted to 2026 construction prices. Author’s estimate.
Net squad capital expenditure £185m over five years Cash net spend, constrained by the Squad Cost Ratio.  Author’s model output.
Academy enhancement £15m – £20m Coaching, facilities, recruitment network and player pathway. Highest-return category under the Squad Cost Ratio. Author’s estimate.
Data, analytics and recruitment infrastructure £10m – £15m Rebuilding the function whose historical failure is documented. Author’s estimate.
Commercial and marketing capability £15m – £20m Required to deliver the repricing thesis, particularly international commercial development to offset the regional constraint. Author’s estimate.
Women’s team and Goodison Park operation £20m – £25m Operating and capital cost of the relocated women’s operation over five years. Author’s estimate.
Stadium phase two and precinct development £30m – £50m Partial capture of the non-matchday opportunity absent. Discretionary. Author’s estimate.
Total excluding squad £170m – £230m Central estimate approximately £200m.

Table 9; Investment requirement. All figures other than the squad line are the author’s estimates derived from published comparable projects. They are presented as ranges because no confidential cost information was available.

Five-Year Profit and Loss Forecast

STATUS OF THIS FORECAST

The following forecast is my model. It is not the club’s forecast, it has not been reviewed by the club or by The Friedkin Group, and it is not based on any confidential information. It is built from the audited FY2024/25 base, published peer benchmarks and the regulatory constraints.

Every material assumption is disclosed below so that a reader may substitute their own. The output should be treated as a structured way of thinking about the club’s financial trajectory, not as a prediction.

The forecast

£m FY24/25 A FY25/26 E FY26/27 E FY27/28 E FY28/29 E FY29/30 E
Broadcasting 129.2 128.0 132.0 138.0 145.0 152.0
Matchday 20.3 46.0 52.0 55.0 57.0 60.0
Commercial 47.2 58.0 64.0 72.0 80.0 88.0
Total revenue 196.7 232.0 248.0 265.0 282.0 300.0
Wages and salaries (152.1) (158.0) (163.0) (172.0) (182.0) (192.0)
Other operating costs (63.2) (78.0) (82.0) (84.0) (86.0) (88.0)
EBITDA (18.6) (4.0) 3.0 9.0 14.0 20.0
Player amortisation (50.9) (56.0) (62.0) (70.0) (76.0) (80.0)
Depreciation (5.0) (22.0) (22.0) (23.0) (23.0) (24.0)
Operating loss (74.5) (82.0) (81.0) (84.0) (85.0) (84.0)
Profit on player disposals 31.3 30.0 45.0 45.0 50.0 50.0
Net interest (14.6) (30.0) (32.0) (32.0) (31.0) (30.0)
Loss before exceptional items (57.8) (82.0) (68.0) (71.0) (66.0) (64.0)
Exceptional internal disposal 49.2 — — — — —
Reported loss before tax (8.6) (82.0) (68.0) (71.0) (66.0) (64.0)

Table 10 ;  Five-year profit and loss forecast. FY2024/25 is audited except for the other operating costs and depreciation split, derived as set out in Section 5.1. All subsequent years are the author’s model. Cumulative loss before exceptional items over the five forecast years is £351m.

 Assumptions

Line Assumption and rationale
Broadcasting Modelled on a thirteenth-place finish in FY2025/26 improving to approximately eighth by FY2029/30, with central distributions rising in line with the 2025–2029 cycle and merit and facility payments rising with position. Deliberately treated as performance-linked rather than as a fixed escalator, given the FY2024/25 experience of flat revenue despite cycle growth. No European revenue is assumed in the base case.
Matchday Rises from £20.3m to £46.0m in the first full stadium season, converging toward £60.0m by FY2029/30. The Newcastle benchmark of £51.6m at a yield of £43.64 per attendee is the reference point. Terminal yield is held below Newcastle’s in the early years to reflect the Liverpool premium market constraint.
Commercial Rises from £47.2m to £88.0m, reflecting naming rights, the CMC Markets arrangement and the progressive repricing of the Goodison-era book. This is the assumption most exposed to the unknown contract expiry profile and the single largest source of model risk.
Wages Constrained by the Squad Cost Ratio rather than by willingness to spend. Grows from £152.1m to £192.0m, a compound rate of approximately 4.8%, reaching the current top-eight benchmark band by FY2027/28.
Other operating costs Steps up from £63.2m to £78.0m on stadium operating costs in the first full year, then grows at approximately 2.5% to 4%. Assumes retail and catering remain outsourced; bringing them in-house would raise both revenue and cost.
Player amortisation Rises with squad investment from £50.9m to £80.0m, consistent with net capital expenditure  and contract terms averaging four to five years.
Depreciation Approximately £22m to £24m a year from FY2025/26 on the £813.1m asset. The single largest new charge and substantially absent from FY2024/25.
Player disposal profit Rises from £30.0m to £50.0m, reflecting the academy and trading strategy previously describedUnder the Squad Cost Ratio this line expands the permitted wage bill and is therefore modelled as a strategic priority rather than an incidental gain.
Net interest Approximately £30m to £32m a year from FY2025/26 as capitalisation ceases. Declines modestly as the private placement amortises. Assumes no refinancing.
Not assumed No European qualification revenue. No promotion of the non-matchday events business beyond the commercial line. No refinancing gain. No relegation. No transfer windfall from a single exceptional sale.

Table 11; Forecast assumptions. Each is disclosed so that a reader may substitute their own.

Squad Cost Ratio compliance of the forecast

The wage and amortisation path above is not a judgement about ambition. It is the maximum that the Squad Cost Ratio permits, given the modelled revenue and player-trading profit. The table below demonstrates compliance.

£m FY24/25 A FY25/26 E FY26/27 E FY27/28 E FY28/29 E FY29/30 E
Wages 152.1 158.0 163.0 172.0 182.0 192.0
Player amortisation 50.9 56.0 62.0 70.0 76.0 80.0
Agent fees (estimated) 9.0 9.0 10.0 10.0 11.0 11.0
Numerator 212.0 223.0 235.0 252.0 269.0 283.0
Revenue 196.7 232.0 248.0 265.0 282.0 300.0
Player disposal profit 31.3 30.0 45.0 45.0 50.0 50.0
Denominator 228.0 262.0 293.0 310.0 332.0 350.0
Squad Cost Ratio 93.0% 85.1% 80.2% 81.3% 81.0% 80.9%
Permitted limit — 85.0% 85.0% 85.0% 85.0% 85.0%

Table 12; Squad Cost Ratio compliance. The 70% limit would apply in any year of UEFA competition participation, which is not assumed in the base case. Agent fees are the author’s estimate.

THE PARADOX A BUYER MUST CONFRONT

Table 12 contains an uncomfortable finding. If Everton qualifies for European competition, the applicable Squad Cost Ratio limit falls from 85% to 70%. On the FY2029/30 modelled figures, a 70% limit would permit a numerator of £245m against a modelled £283m, requiring an immediate reduction in squad cost of approximately £38m.

European qualification therefore brings additional revenue of perhaps £20m to £40m while simultaneously tightening the spending constraint by approximately £38m. The net competitive effect of qualifying for Europe may, on these numbers, be close to neutral or negative in the first year.

This is a genuine structural feature of the current regulatory architecture and it applies to every club in Everton’s position. A business plan that treats European qualification as an unambiguous financial positive has not modelled the ratio.

The cash funding requirement

The profit and loss forecast is the wrong number for an investor. Amortisation and depreciation are non-cash, while transfer expenditure and infrastructure capital expenditure are cash but do not appear as costs. The table below converts the forecast into the number that determines the size of the cheque.

Cash item, five years to FY2029/30 Amount Derivation
Cumulative EBITDA +£42m Table 10: negative £4m, £3m, £9m, £14m, £20m.
Cash interest (£155m) Table 10 net interest across the five years. Assumes no refinancing.
Net player capital expenditure (£185m) Cash net transfer spend consistent with the amortisation path in Table 10 and constrained by the Squad Cost Ratio.
Infrastructure and capability investment (£180m) Table 9 non-squad central estimate of approximately £200m, less approximately £20m of women’s team operating cost already carried in other operating costs.
Scheduled debt amortisation (£45m) Estimated principal repayment on the £350m thirty-year private placement at approximately £9m a year.
Gross five-year cash requirement (£523m) Sum of the above.
Less opening cash at 30 June 2025 +£79m Audited.
Net external funding requirement (£444m) The number an investor must fund, in addition to the purchase price.

Table 13; Five-year cash funding requirement. Author’s model. A plausible range around the central estimate is £400m to £520m depending principally on the training ground specification and the pace of commercial repricing.

THE CENTRAL FINDING OF THIS REPORT

Everton requires a purchase price and then approximately the same amount again over five years.

A buyer acquiring a controlling interest at the central equity valuation of approximately £400m should budget total committed capital of approximately £845m over five years, of which approximately £444m is funding requirement rather than acquisition cost.

For a minority investor the arithmetic is proportionate: a 25% holder should expect to fund approximately £111m of the requirement over five years in addition to the entry price, or to accept dilution.

This is the question that determines whether the transaction is viable for any given party. It is not answered by the purchase price.

Valuation

Comparable transactions

Transaction Date Implied EV / revenue Terms and relevance
Chelsea 2022 c. 7.0x £2.5bn equity plus £1.75bn committed investment. Trophy asset, contested process, distressed vendor circumstances. Limited relevance.
Manchester United (INEOS minority) 2024 c. 6.9x Approximately £4.5bn valuation on revenue of £648m. Global brand premium. Limited relevance.
Liverpool (reported interest) 2025/26 c. 8.0x Approximately £5.5bn on revenue of approximately £700m. Reported, not transacted. Relevant only as the local competitive benchmark.
Crystal Palace (Woody Johnson) June 2025 c. 2.4x 43% acquired from Eagle Football for £190m, implying approximately £442m for the whole club on revenue of £189.2m. The most directly relevant comparable: a non-top-six London club, minority stake, recent.
Newcastle United 2021 c. 2.0x Approximately £305m. Pre-transformation. Illustrates the base multiple before sovereign capital.
Everton (The Friedkin Group) Dec 2024 c. 2.6x Consideration reported at more than £400m; net cost approximately £331m. The direct precedent, but struck before the stadium opened.

Table 14;  Comparable transactions. Multiples are the author’s calculations from reported consideration and published revenue and should be treated as indicative.

 Methodology and the multiple

The conventional rule of thumb prices non-top-six Premier League clubs at approximately two times revenue, against six to eight times for the established elite. Applying two times to Everton’s estimated FY2025/26 revenue of £232m gives an enterprise value of £464m and, after net debt of £389.4m, an equity value of approximately £75m. That result is plainly wrong, and the reason it is wrong is instructive.

The two-times convention was formed on clubs that rent or occupy old stadiums. Everton owns a new-build 52,888-seat asset with a fifty-year life and thirty-year matched funding. The Crystal Palace transaction, at approximately 2.4 times revenue for a club with no comparable asset, sets the floor rather than the ceiling for a stadium-owning club. This report therefore applies 3.0 to 3.8 times, central case 3.4 times, and states plainly that the premium above the conventional multiple is attributable to the stadium and to nothing else.

Low Central High
EV / FY2025/26E revenue 3.0x 3.4x 3.8x
Estimated FY2025/26 revenue £232m £232m £232m
Enterprise value £696m £789m £882m
Less: total borrowings (£468.5m) (£468.5m) (£468.5m)
Add: cash £79.1m £79.1m £79.1m
Net debt (£389.4m) (£389.4m) (£389.4m)
Equity value £307m £400m £493m

Table 15;  Valuation. Author’s calculation. Revenue is the FY2025/26 model estimate in Table 10, not an audited figure; the FY2025/26 accounts are not yet filed.

Conclusion on value

The equity value of Everton Football Club as at 6 September 2026 falls in a range of approximately £310m to £490m, with a central estimate of approximately £400m. Enterprise value falls in a range of approximately £700m to £880m.

Two observations follow, and they are directed at opposite parties.

To a prospective buyer: the central estimate is close to what The Friedkin Group is reported to have paid in December 2024. There is no evident distress discount available and no reason to expect one, given the seller’s balance sheet. A buyer should also note that the valuation depends materially on a FY2025/26 revenue estimate that has not yet been filed, and should consider making price contingent on those accounts.

To the seller: the group is not, on this analysis, sitting on a substantial paper gain. The value created by the refinancing and by the completion of the stadium has been largely offset by the debt taken on to build it and by two seasons of thirteenth-place finishes. A minority stake priced against the central estimate,  approximately £100m for 25%, before any discount for lack of control of perhaps 10% to 20% where no governance rights attach — represents a fair rather than an opportunistic price.

The relegation sensitivity

THE SCENARIO THAT DETERMINES THE RISK PROFILE

On relegation, broadcasting revenue falls from approximately £130m to a parachute payment of approximately £50m in year one. Wages fall through relegation clauses by perhaps 30%. Matchday and commercial revenue fall by perhaps 25% to 35%.

But depreciation of approximately £22m to £24m and interest of approximately £30m to £32m are unaffected. They are fixed against an £813m asset and a £350m thirty-year instrument.

The modelled pre-tax loss in a relegation year exceeds £120m, and the equity value on any revenue multiple falls below the net debt of £389.4m. Equity value in that scenario approaches or reaches zero.

This is the defining risk of the asset. A new stadium financed with long-dated debt converts a mid-table club from a low-return, low-risk proposition into a leveraged bet on Premier League survival. Any investor must price that, and must be satisfied that the squad investment in Table 9 is sufficient to make relegation genuinely improbable rather than merely unlikely.

The business plan

Sources and uses over five years

Item Amount Note
USES
Equity purchase price, 100% basis £400m
Net external funding requirement, five years £444m
Total committed capital, 100% basis £844m
SOURCES
New equity £844m Or a lower figure with additional debt, subject to Squad Cost Ratio and regulatory constraints on leverage.
PROPORTIONATE, 25% MINORITY
Entry price at central valuation £100m Before any discount for lack of control.
Share of five-year funding requirement £111m Or accept dilution.
Total commitment £211m

Table 16; Sources and uses. Author’s model. The minority case assumes pro-rata funding participation, which may not be the structure offered.

The five-year operating plan

The sequencing below follows from the Squad Cost Ratio constraint and is not discretionary. A plan that reorders it will breach the ratio.

Period Priority Rationale
Years 1–2 Infrastructure and capability, not squad. Commission the training ground. Rebuild recruitment and data functions. Reprice every commercial contract that expires. Bring retail and catering in-house if the analysis supports it. Squad Cost Ratio is at or above the limit and permits no wage growth. Capital deployed into infrastructure does not enter the ratio numerator. Bringing catering in-house expands the denominator.
Years 2–3 Establish the player-trading model. Convert academy production into disposal profit. Begin selective squad investment as the ratio opens. Disposal profit expands the permitted numerator by approximately 85 pence for every pound of profit. This is the mechanism that funds competitiveness.
Years 3–5 Deploy squad investment toward the top-eight wage benchmark. Target Europa Conference or Europa League qualification. Assess the stadium precinct opportunity. By this point the ratio permits a numerator consistent with a £180m to £192m wage bill. Note the 70% ratio applies in any European year
Throughout Protect against relegation above all else. The downside is not a poor return; it is the loss of the equity.

Table 17; Operating plan sequencing.

What would change the conclusion

This report should be revised upward if the FY2025/26 accounts show matchday revenue above £50m and commercial revenue above £60m; if the major commercial contracts are found to expire within the five-year window; or if a control transaction becomes available at a price near the low end of the stated range.

It should be revised downward if the change-of-control provisions in the private placement require refinancing; if the naming-rights value proves to be at the lower reported figure; if residual Leeds or Leicester compensation liability is material; or if the process shifts from a minority raise to a full disposal, which would require the analysis of motive.

Principal risks

Risk Severity Assessment
Relegation Critical Equity value approaches zero against £389.4m of net debt and fixed stadium charges. The defining risk of the asset.
Squad Cost Ratio constraint High Prevents capital deployment into competitiveness in years one and two. Structural, not manageable..
Commercial contract expiry profile High The repricing thesis  is the largest single value driver and its timing is entirely unknown from outside the club.
Change of control in the debt High A make-whole put on the £350m private placement would materially alter control-transaction economics. Unverified.
Liverpool commercial ceiling Medium-High Structural and permanent. Caps terminal revenue. Cannot be managed, only accepted.
Infrastructure around the stadium Medium Constrains premium yield and non-matchday income. Partly outside the club’s control. Improves slowly..
Regulatory approval Medium The Independent Football Regulator process adds up to five months and a source-of-wealth test that did not apply to the incumbent.
Multi-club conflict Medium European qualification for both Everton and AS Roma triggers UEFA Article 5. The upside event creates the problem.
Recruitment execution Medium The 2016–2022 record is among the worst capital-efficiency records in European football. Change of personnel is evidence of intent, not of capability.
Residual PSR compensation Low-Medium Leeds and Leicester quantum not in the public domain. A diligence item rather than a modelled liability.

Table 18; Principal risks, ranked by severity in the author’s judgement.

Data limitations and caveats

This report has been prepared from public sources. The following limitations are material and are stated in full rather than buried, in accordance with the evidential discipline set out at the front of this document. A reader who ignores them will over-rely on the figures above.

Matters that are not in the public domain

The following are unknown and have been estimated, inferred or left open. Each is a diligence item for any prospective investor.

Methodological caveats

Disclosure regarding the author as a source

At several points this report relies on analysis previously published by myself — principally the alternative naming-rights figure, the characterisation of the post-completion dividend, and elements of the debt-stack reconstruction. Those instances are identified in the text as the author’s own sourcing or analysis and are distinguished from audited or filed data.

This is disclosed because a report asserting independence should not quietly treat its own prior work as external corroboration. Where the author’s figure conflicts with a mainstream media figure, both are given and neither is presented as settled.

Primary sources

Reported and secondary sources

My own prior analysis

Closing note

This report has reached conclusions that are uncomfortable for both sides. It finds that the seller is not in distress and is not sitting on a windfall; that the buyer faces a funding requirement approximately equal to the purchase price; that the stadium is transformative for value but close to neutral for near-term profit; that the binding constraint on competitiveness is regulatory rather than financial; and that the downside scenario is loss of the equity rather than a poor return.

It has been prepared on that basis deliberately. A report that flattered either party would be worth less to both.

 

Paul Quinn · CWTE Limited ·  6 September 2026

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