If you look at today’s Premier League table there are the top six clubs (three from London, two from Manchester, one from Merseyside) and then nine points behind the last of the top six can be found Everton. Given their history, Everton fans feel that they also qualify as a top club.
Farhad Moshiri has a 49.9 per cent stake in the club and he has made them a £80m interest free loan. He has vowed to return them to the elite of English football.
If you look at today’s Premier League table there are the top six clubs (three from London, two from Manchester, one from Merseyside) and then nine points behind the last of the top six can be found Everton. Given their history, Everton fans feel that they also qualify as a top club.
Farhad Moshiri has a 49.9 per cent stake in the club and he has made them a £80m interest free loan. He has vowed to return them to the elite of English football.
One thing stands in their way: Goodison Park. It is the least modern stadium of a club that has been in the Premier League since its formation. Burnley’s Turf Moor is more old fashioned (and very atmospheric) but their participation in the top flight has been intermittent, although they should stay up this season. The owners of Crystal Palace recognise that their stadium badly needs modernisation.
It now looks like there is real hope of Everton getting a new waterfront stadium. Bramley-Moore Dock is the preferred option rather than Stonebridge Cross on the city’s outskirts.
Everton also announced that they have secured £75m in revenue over the next five years from a naming rights’ deal for their Finch Farm training ground and shirt sponsorship.
Everton have secured a sponsorship deal with a Russian company founded by one of Arsenal’s biggest shareholders, Alisher Usmanov.
USM Holdings has become the club’s training ground partner in a move that will lead to the facility being renamed USM Finch Farm from this month for an initial five years. It is one tranche of a £75 million deal that has been struck by the club.
Usmanov set up the company in 2012 and the chairman of the board of directors is Farhad Moshiri, Everton’s major shareholder. No conflict of interest issues are thought to arise.