Here are your Everton evening headlines for Tuesday, December 20.
Everton investment latest
For Everton, 2023 will see them take another significant step towards realising the vision for a new stadium.
The 52,888 capacity Everton Stadium at Bramley Moore Dock has risen up from the ground in 2022 alongside the River Mersey, the project set to be completed in time for the 2024/25 season. For the club it will be a milestone that will allow them the opportunity to explore new avenues of growth that should better enable them to try and close the gap on some of their rivals. To leave Goodison Park will be a wrench for many but in order for the club to be able to compete in the modern landscape it is a move of necessity.
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The project, something that has been at the top of the list for club owner Farhad Moshiri, will cost some £500m, with a portion of that funding to arrive from the Blues' majority shareholder himself. But while there have been notable successes on the financing front in terms of securing fixed costs from Laing O'Rourke, the company undertaking the construction work, something that has given some greater cost certainty around the project in the face of economic headwinds and geo-political issues such as the price of steel rising due to the Russia invasion of Ukraine back in February, there remains a large bulk of the financing for the project still to be found.
The club have been on the lookout for investment for the remainder of the project for some time, engaging US banks MUFG and JP Morgan back in January 2020 to help secure the funding for the project. The ECHO was told by US financial sources with knowledge of the situation recently that there were interested parties and that some discussions had taken place, and continue to take place with regards to securing finance.
But in terms of investment into the football club to free up capital to complete the project, there have been interested parties who have shown their hand more publicly already.
Amadou Onana admission
Amadou Onana has recalled a dream 12 months in which the Everton midfielder settled into life on Merseyside with ease and achieved on of his 'biggest dreams' in playing for Belgium in the World Cup.
Since signing from Lille in the summer, Onana made an immediate impact in his first match against Aston Villa and has quickly become an ever-present in midfield alongside Idrissa Gueye and Alex Iwobi. The 21-year-old instantly forged a relationship with his teammates and manager Frank Lampard, allowing him to focus purely on developing his game and helping the team.
"It feels like my work paid off," Onana said. "Everything that happened, goals that I set myself one year before, I achieved them. One of my biggest dreams was to play for Belgium in a World Cup and I did it last month. It is just a great feeling knowing that all the hard work I put in is paying off.
"[At Everton] I feel good because I just settled. Everybody here helped me to settle as fast as possible. My first months here have been great. The performances right now of the team aren't that great but we will try to make it better. But the atmosphere - everything just fits to me. I have been doing good in the Premier League so I am happy, but I know there is a lot more to do to get to where I want to be and for us as a team to get to where we want to be. So there is a lot of work to do."
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