AliousChris Beesley Believes Everton and Its Supporters Deserve Better Amid Takeover Saga
Everton supporter Chris Beesley believes the club and its fans deserve better than the current situation involving majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri and the proposed takeover by 777 Partners, given Everton’s special status in the football world.
While Everton supporters may wish to revisit the mid-1980s when footballers sported hairstyles akin to Michael Jordan, they are growing increasingly weary of the never-ending saga surrounding the club’s drawn-out takeover process.
The Everton FC Shareholders Association has issued a forceful statement, urging Moshiri and the Everton Board to “stop this damaging process now and recognize that 777 Partners are not at this time fit-and-proper prospective owners of Everton Football Club,” in the absence of a timely decision from the Premier League.
Last summer, Everton gave fans the longest ’48 hours’ in history after promising a statement about interim appointments and the chairman’s future. On September 15, when Everton announced that 777 had signed an agreement with Moshiri to acquire his 94.1% stake, the club stated that the transaction’s closing was expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2023. However, eight months later, the deal is still awaiting regulatory approval.
Even when the deal was struck, 777 was facing public relations battles with fan protests at several clubs in their global portfolio. Recently, it emerged that Standard Liege players are still unpaid for April, and the Belgian club’s former owners have filed a complaint calling for 777 assets to be seized after failed payment for their purchase of the club.
Moreover, the Miami-based private investment firm is now facing allegations of engaging in a sophisticated fraudulent scheme amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds, raising further concerns about their ability to successfully execute the Everton takeover.
Despite the charm offensive launched by 777 since the deal’s announcement, one of the PR agencies it had employed left last week, and the firm has declined to publicly comment on their prospective plans for Everton or the process itself, citing the requirements of the Owners and Directors Test to remain silent.
While Everton and its loyal supporters have bounced back from recent struggles under Sean Dyche, securing their Premier League status for the first time since crowds returned en masse following the global coronavirus pandemic, the club’s unique status in football deserves better treatment.
As the only founder members of both the Football League in 1888 and the Premier League in 1992 to be ever-presents in the latter, with the 2024/25 season being their 122nd in the top flight, Everton is the closest thing the game has to a club that has competed at the elite level almost continually from the start. Their supporters have been the lifeblood of the club since its inception, and Everton can lay claim to being the game’s first major fanbase.
With the move to a magnificent 52,888-capacity stadium by the banks of the Mersey enabling Everton to play in front of the biggest average crowds in their history, the club remains one of the most prestigious names in football. Neville Southall, who played more matches and won more honors for Everton than anyone else, expressed his perplexity that others had not come forward to acquire the club shortly after the proposed 777 deal was announced.
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