It’s April Fool’s Day but while the jokes from rivals have been coming in at Everton’s expense for over a week now – and in many instances for much longer – the best way to silence the jibes is by becoming successful, both on and off the pitch.
The Blues released their annual accounts yesterday, posting an operating loss of £44.7million for the financial year, but that was only the latest of several big off-the-field issues over the past week. Everyone will no doubt have their own interpretation of the figures but at least the numbers are there in black and white unlike another issue at the club over which details remain scarce.
Just as everyone was seemingly preparing for a ‘quiet weekend’ in the middle of the international break, on the evening of Friday March 24, the Premier League announced they were referring Everton to an independent commission for an “alleged breach” of profit and sustainability rules. The Blues duly released their own statement in response, stating that “the club strongly contests the allegation of non-compliance and together with its independent team of experts is entirely confident that it remains compliant with all financial rules and regulations.”
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Regardless of the ultimate findings of the independent commission, facing such a charge from the season in which Everton came disgustingly close to going down for the first time since 1951, posting the joint-lowest equivalent points total in the club’s history, is an added humiliation to their loyal but long-suffering supporters. The previous month, Manchester City were charged by the Premier League of breaking financial rules around 100 times between 2009-18, a period in which they won the title three times (they’ve since added another three to move within one of Everton on the all-time list).
The allegations directed at Sheikh Mansour’s petrodollar-fuelled ‘Galacticos’ from down the East Lancs Road, have prompted football followers to speculate that City might end up being retrospectively stripped of some of their major honours during the time in question. It therefore didn’t take long for a wag on the ECHO’s online article comments section to quip that Everton might be made to hand all their trophies back and readers of this column obviously don’t require a detailed explanation that this is the longest silverware drought in the club’s history, stretching back to 1995.
While fortunes on the pitch have been mostly a trail of tears under Farhad Moshiri with the owner apologising for the costly mistakes during his tenure in an open letter to fans last June in which he admitted: “We have not always spent significant amounts of money wisely”, one area of the club that mercifully continues to a model of efficiency and progress is the eagerly-anticipated new stadium, on which we now know they spent £207million on in 2021/22.
As much as their affection for Goodison Park, the first purpose-built football ground in England, is immense, most Evertonians have recognised for at least a generation now that the club need to relocate and it’s probably not coincidental that the lengthy search to build a new home has coincided with the Blues’ longest-ever fallow period having started the Premier League era in 1995 as one of the so-called ‘Big Five’ at the time. For all the off-the-field tumult including Moshiri not attending a game at Goodison since the 5-2 capitulation against Watford on October 23, 2021; the furore over an alleged ‘headlock’ and ongoing fan protests against both the owner and board of directors, the transformation of Bramley-Moore Dock is something all citizens of the Liverpool City Region, regardless of their individual football affiliation – or lack of one – should be rightly proud of.
Everton’s new stadium has overcome a global pandemic that saw professional football played in empty grounds for the first time; the prospect of a breakaway European Super League in which England’s richest half dozen clubs threatened to join what would have been a shameful synthetic closed shop private member’s club that trampled on over 130 years of sporting integrity created by the game’s organic pyramid system and even the arbitrary rulings from ivory towers of the Unesco committee, who stripped Liverpool of its World Heritage status in 2021 due to their perverse claim that developments threatened the value of the city’s waterfront. The decision was described as “incomprehensible” by Mayor Joanne Anderson, who pointed out that the decision had been made “a decade after Unesco last visited the city to see it with their own eyes.”
But while it was once a feather in the cap for Scousers, the removal of the now lost title hurts much less in real terms than the taking away of Manchester City’s League Championships would do for them. As a resident of New Brighton who can look across to Liverpool’s iconic maritime vista on a daily basis, unlike those who voted in a secret ballot in China two years ago, this correspondent can vouch that the banks of the Mersey have never looked better and the spectacular building that will be Everton’s future home can become the jewel in the crown.
Yet over the past few days we’ve had articles from national titles speculating on numerous ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’ why the completion of the project could be delayed and then another suggesting that it could be behind schedule. These came hot on the heels of a major television broadcaster creating a furore by remarking on how Everton might move in during the 2024/25 season rather than at the start, something the club have been open about for at least a year now.
The progress on the site is there for all to see though if they look with their own eyes and renowned, long-serving ECHO photographer Colin Lane was down on the river this week to take his latest shot of construction and show how it was “coming along in the Spring sunshine.” Most comments when the picture was shared online were thankfully positive but one of Twitter’s 2023 Oscar Wilde wannabes – somehow deluded enough to consider he might be the first ever to make such a witty riposte – remarked: “Will be the best stadium in the Championship that’s for sure!”
Such tired and lazy gags are nothing new though. I heard a passing cyclist come out with a similar jibe when visiting the site for the first time myself last August.
The way to end such wisecracks is simple albeit not straightforward. Everton need to get themselves safe this season in the hope they can start progressing properly under Sean Dyche next term as they prepare to move from Goodison.
As we all know, the bottom half of the Premier League table is currently unprecedentedly tight at this stage of the season with just three points separating 12th to 19th place but the Blues need to make this work to their advantage. Unfortunately they looked doomed under Frank Lampard and one thing you'd take from these latest set of accounts is that this is not a club that looks like it could cope well with relegation from a financial point of view but much has been done in a short space of time to revive their fortunes since the long-serving ex-Burnley manager took charge.
During their last match at Chelsea, while it was obvious that they were up against it when facing an in-form side, Everton hung on in there to show the kind of resoluteness and character required in a relegation scrap to secure a late but well-earned point at what has long been a notorious bogey ground for them. The Blues must have the faith that with the resources they have at their disposal, Dyche and his staff are capable enough to accumulate more points in the run-in than at least three of their rivals.
The hard work resumes of course on Monday night as Everton look to beat Tottenham Hotspur in front of fans for the first time in over a decade. Winning is the way for both Dyche and beleaguered Blues to ensure that for all the torment, they still have the last laugh.
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