Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan believes the challenge facing Farhad Moshiri is “to make the right decisions” following a report that Peter Kenyon is leading a consortium in talks to try and takeover at Everton. The Daily Telegraph published an article on Monday evening claiming that former Manchester United and Chelsea chief executive Mr Kenyon is spearheading a group that includes the chief executive of Minneapolis-based Talon Real Estate, Maciek Kaminski, and American businessman John Thornton.
Mr Moshiri's long-time intermediary Jim White followed this up by saying he had a "no comment" from the Everton owner but he understood that talks were ongoing and "positive." Jordan, who last week responded to Mr Moshiri’s open letter to Everton supporters by declaring that it “seems like a snivelling exercise to curry favour with the fans”, told talkSPORT : “Peter Kenyon is the ultimate tyre-kicker. He did this with Newcastle, I fail to understand why talks in their relatively early stage are in the media unless you want them to.
“Last time he was trying to that with Newcastle and raise crowdfunding to buy the football club. He is connected and will have a lot of people around him that will have money, that may well be interested in football clubs.
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“Whether Everton are in-play that’s for Farhad Moshiri to determine or whoever else is involved in Everton. That’s what Peter does (fronts the consortium), finds out where a deal can be done and finds out who can fund it for him.
“I’m sure they are (talks positive) because if someone comes knocking on your door to buy your house then you can charge them twice the price then talks will be positive until someone has to write a cheque then the talks become less positive. We’ll see how this plays out.”
The report suggests talks are at a “relatively early stage”, but that heads of terms may already be in place - signalling the intent to progress, claiming that Mr Moshiri values Everton in excess of £500million, including the club’s debts.
Jordan said: “For Everton it doesn’t necessarily mean good or bad news because no one can argue that Moshiri is prepared to back the decisions he makes, the challenge is to make him make the right decisions. Whether Lampard is the right decision, we will see, but he has backed it, bought players and committed huge revenues to Everton.
“The challenge is Everton still have the spectre of Financial Fair Play hanging above them so next season they go into a regulated environment where they can’t buy and sell like most football clubs can they have to account for what they are doing and get the Premier League board’s permission to be able to make decisions about how their squads can be supplemented, implemented or changed. That’s the reason they sold Lucas Digne in January because they bought proceeds in before they bought players, so they’re under guidance and that won’t change with ownership because they’ve been sanctioned.
“Whether there’s a deal to buy Moshiri out or a deal to come alongside Moshiri and put some money in alongside him from an American investment point of view is a different discussion. I would take, with the best respect in the world which is very little, what Peter Kenyon tells you with a pinch of salt.”
