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Everton once counted as one of the 'big five', but these days they have to cope with an annual battle against relegation. Paul Gregg, a wealthy Oxford-based entrepreneur, has threatened to mount a legal challenge to remove theatre impressario Bill Kenwright as chairman of the heavily indebted Merseyside club. The threat was made after Kenwright missed a self-imposed deadline to resolve the ownership of the Toffees. Gregg has offered £15m of 'immediate financial support' for the struggling club. With Mr Kenwright he is a leading shareholder in True Blue Holdings, an investment consortium that bought a 72 per cent stake in Everton in 2000. Mr Gregg argues that Everton will only be able to attract investment if the consortium is dissolved and Mr Kenwright and his main ally, Jon Woods, resign from the Everton board.
Everton have debts of about £40m and need a substantial cash injection to rebuild their weak playing squad and construct a new stadium. Of course, Everton have Wayne Rooney, but you can't build a team around one player (currently injured) who actually acquired more yellow cards last season (twelve) than he scored goals (nine). Rooney could probably fetch around £30m but there have been boardroom disagreements about whether he should be sold and whether there should be a ground share with Liverpool. It was these arguments that probably led to the surprise departure of Trevor Birch, a financial trouble shooter, after only six weeks as Everton's chief executive.
Mr Kenwright has refused to accept Mr Gregg's proposal until he reveals the identity of the club's new investors. It is interesting that in the Fan File in 4-4-2's season preview, the comment on Bill Kenwright was that 'he tries hard and has our best interests at heart.
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