And then there was one…
A boardroom exodus some 15 days after the final whistle blew on the 1-0 win over Bournemouth that secured Everton’s Premier League survival but just a couple of hours after reports were published revealing that Carlo Ancelotti was preparing to sue his former employers saw chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale, Chief Finance and Strategy Officer Grant Ingles and Non-Executive Director Graeme Sharp all depart. Only chairman Bill Kenwright, for now, remains.
The same club release that announced the departures of the other three board members, added that a statement will be made about interim appointments and the future of the 77-year-old who has taken to referring to himself in dialogue with supporters as “Chairman Bill” in the next 48 hours. The news was swift and decisive and within minutes of the announcement the top of the “Our People” section of Everton’s website were the board of directors are placed was duly culled with the previous quartet reduced to a solitary snap of Kenwright.
It’s understood that Kenwright, who has been on the board since 1989, is in talks with Everton owner Farhad Moshiri – who has never actually been a board member himself since he became the club’s majority shareholder in 2016 – regarding his position. The Blues loyal but long-suffering fanbase will no doubt we waiting with bated breath to see how his situation plays itself out and none of us can shy away from the reality that many will not be satisfied until he too steps down from his position.
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It has become increasingly obvious in recent months that change – considerable and emphatic change – is needed at Everton Football Club, a venerable sporting institution and senior football club in England’s most-passionate football city as despite holding such positions, it has not been operating anywhere close to capacity.
Kenwright used to boast that someone at a very famous football club told him: “whenever we have a problem we say ‘what would the Everton board do because they always get it right?’” but such claims are not echoed by manager Sean Dyche, the man who performed something of a sporting miracle in keeping the Blues up, only took charge of his first game on February 1 but is acutely aware of the scale of the task at hand.
In his post-match press conference following the final day victory over the Cherries, Dyche said: “It’s a big club, make no mistake. Big history, big club but we are not performing like a big club. We have to find a way of changing that.”
Just over a year ago, shortly after Everton had endured another near-miss with the Championship, only securing their top flight status with a dramatic 3-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace in their final home game and penultimate fixture, Moshiri issued an open letter to the club’s supporters. The Monaco-based businessman stated: “Mistakes have been made and for that I want to apologise to all of you. It has not been good enough and we need to do better.
“You have given us incredible support that helped us over the line when we most needed it, and we must repay that support and show that lessons have been learnt.”
For all the majority shareholder’s pledges and platitudes though, it would seem that such warnings were not heeded as the Blues promptly went on to endure an even more miserable season in 2022/23. For that there has to be accountability from those who are supposed to be running the club.
Francis Lee, the former Manchester City centre-forward turned toilet roll tycoon who returned to Maine Road as chairman, once mused: “What other job is there where your entire livelihood depends on 11 daft lads?” but in truth it would be grossly unfair to pin all or indeed most of Everton’s failings on the players.
You might be able to present something resembling a convincing argument that they under-achieved somewhat in the previous campaign but the finger of blame for the past 12 months – which in turn has been the chickens coming home to roost in terms of Financial Fair Play restrictions biting after the previous years of profligacy and managerial churn under Moshiri – who also admitted in his aforementioned correspondence last summer “we have not always spent significant amounts of money wisely” – has to be pointed firmly at those within Goodison Park’s corridors of power.
With Richarlison having been sold and with the team going into the 2022/23 season without a recognised striker after Dominic Calvert-Lewin picked up an unfortunately inevitable injury on the eve of the big kick-off, those running the club have to take on the lion’s share of accountability. Then with the Blues struggling team averaging less than a goal a game, it was obvious additional firepower was required in January.
But despite an understanding that director of football Kevin Thelwell was staying in the UK to work on deals while the team went to Australia early in the World Cup break with a couple of new faces targeted, and Moshiri himself proclaiming in a video interview with Fan Advisory Board chair Jazz Bal “if we need a striker, we’ll get one”, Everton were the only club in the bottom half not to strengthen during the winter window even though home-grown hero Anthony Gordon was sold for £45million.
The result for a club that prides itself on having played more seasons in the English top flight than any other – 2023/24 will be their 121st, some 11 more than nearest challengers Aston Villa – was the lowest equivalent points total in the club’s 135-year Football League/Premier League history with the Blues, the only founder members of both those competitions to be ever-presents in the latter, coming disgustingly close to a first relegation in 72 years. They were just one goal away from the drop and the repercussions if Abdoulaye Doucoure had not hit his 57th minute howitzer past Mark Travers on the final day do not bear thinking about.
Everton going down would have been the biggest such fall in this country since Manchester United suffered the same fate in 1974 and when the aforementioned Aston Villa suffered relegation in 2016 – the closest recent equivalent to the Blues – some 500 club employees lost their jobs. The magnitude of such failure is stark then.
Nobody has a divine right to be among the elite and if you’re not run efficiently then you’ll always be in danger but here is a club that has been operating, almost continuously save for four seasons in the old Second Division between 1930/31 and 1951/52 to 1953/54, in the top flight of the English game since the very start, before any of the current so-called ‘Big Six’ were involved and they’ve never performed as badly as this, even on the two occasions that they did go down.
Beginning in 1888, this is a period that began with no cars in the UK and spans the invention of the aeroplane, television, two World Wars, man on the moon, the rise of the internet and of course the creation of the Premier League – in short, a society in which everyday life has been transformed to create the modern planet we now inhabit – but throughout all these revolutionary changes, Evertonians have never had to put up with a season in which their team performed as poorly as this.
You can shake your head at former manager Frank Lampard – who was the unanimous choice of the board to become Blues boss in January 2022 – all you like and his subsequent struggles in his interim role at Chelsea have exposed his own limitations in the job. But those above him at Everton were setting themselves up to fail with an unbalanced squad ill-equipped to deal with the rigours of world football’s toughest domestic division.
Throw into the mix, the board’s matchday absenteeism on the back of what they called the security threats which sparked a civil war with their own supporters by creating a wedge between ordinary supporters and those at the top which quickly grew into a chasm through a series of pre-game protest marches plus other demonstrations and their position started to look increasingly untenable. Trust was lost for great numbers of beleaguered Blues who had already felt undermined by the ill-judged “good times” comments of the year before and as the situation escalated, the tone of Kenwright’s public statement in April – no matter how slighted he might have felt regarding the irresponsible and insensitive speculation about his own health from others and barbs towards his fellow board members – felt like a tipping point with many.
A lifelong Evertonian himself of course, Kenwright had revelled in David Moyes’ coining of the phrase ‘The People’s Club’ in 2002 when he appointed the Scot as manager. But when as a football administrator and a mere custodian, you take on those same such people who are the lifeblood of the club then in the end there is only going to be one winner.
The change has started but it’s not yet finished, that’s clear. After all, leaving the last word to Moshiri himself with a third extract from his open letter from a year ago: “More than any other club in England, Everton is the club of its people, its community and its fans, and always will be.”
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