EVERTON POWER GAME: WHAT NOW?
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

I have written before of the current power set-up at Goodison Park. You will find the details here. Time now to speculate on what lies ahead. The end of the season may well bring important changes in those who control the club’s ownership and administration activities. Whether this will have much affect on our overall position in the game is another matter. At the time of writing the emergence of a sugar-daddy with huge amounts of cash is about as likely as you winning the lottery. So there may be some shuffling for position but not much more.

As we all know, the majority owners of Everton Football Club are (deputy chairman) Bill Kenwright and Paul Gregg. They are presently ensconced on the board of directors with (chairman) Philip Carter, Jon Woods, Arthur Abercromby and Keith Tamlin. The Chief Executive Officer is Michael Dunford.

All company ownerships are fluid, all change with circumstances. Football is no different and never has been. What has changed in detail in football is manipulated emergence of the PLC and the onset of external corporate ownership interested only in what profits can be taken out of the game. The latter has naturally affected the details of power-mongering. You need look no further than the demise of Peter Ridsdale at Leeds United. But there are plenty of other examples.

Kenwright and Gregg exercise their power through True Blue Holdings, which holds the majority of the clubs shares. Of necessity any common-sense Evertonian will therefore direct primary interest toward both. Relatively speaking the others are bit part players. However, bit part players or not they can and do affect the direction of policy and events to some degree.

Firstly, Paul Gregg. With the demise of Kings Waterfront I think it likely he will now sell his shares and leave the club. It is apparent there has been a major difference of opinion between him and the rest of the board. In the circumstances it is difficult to see what he gets from staying. The only profits he can hope to make will come from the sale of his share of ownership and even then only if he manages to drive a hard bargain. My understanding is there is an agreement in place which provides Bill Kenwright with first option to buy his shares if he leaves. My guess too is that they now have no reason for the business liaison. Gregg may have “pushed his luck” with the failed reverse mortgage proposal for funding construction of the new stadium/arena, an idea which Kenwright (rightly) opposed along with the rest of the directors.

Which brings me to Bill Kenwright. If he wants to take up such an option it is likely he would borrow the money to do so. I doubt if he is wealthy enough to buy the remainder and leave him enough reserve in his personal fortune. Moreover, I suspect his health isn’t in good shape. Though unlikely, he might simply decide enough is enough, that he has a surfeit of other problems and the comparative trivia of a football club is the last thing he needs in his life. Certainly all his friends in the game thought he was mad to take up the poisoned chalice in the first place. In my view it would be a great pity if he sold up and left the club entirely. The game needs his kind of personal commitment and approachability. The game has had enough, more than enough, of the self-styled financial whiz kids, fourth rate salesmen and spivs who have brought the sport to its present state. I say this with due acknowledgement of his weakness in trying to run the club from London and thus leaving the situation open to manipulation by resident carpet-baggers. If he does stay he will have to solve that problem once and for all, probably through the kind of unpleasant direct action he usually tries to avoid. If he doesn’t solve it he will have to face a continuance of the kind of large and small messes which have bedevilled his majority ownership. He needs to clean out the Augean stables and he needs to do it now.

In my piece on the failure of the Kings Waterfront project I opined there might be three factions on the board of directors. I guessed these were Paul Gregg V Bill Kenwright V any one or group of Carter-Woods-Abercromby-Tamlin. If true, we already know the stances and weaknesses of Gregg and Kenwright because these are fairly self evident. It is the third faction which is less clear.

Strong rumours continue to circulate that Philip Carter will retire during the summer. If true, he should go with our collective thanks not only for his best years but also for imparting a measure of superficial dignity during the latter dark years of our fortunes. His departure will provide an opportunity for a younger man to take the reins and give added impetus to the arrival and success of David Moyes.

Of the remaining directors, it has been said that minor shareholders Arthur Abercromby and Keith Tamlin hold the most expensive season tickets in the league. It is impossible to tell what their overall contribution has been. The guesstimate is that it has been virtually negligible despite audible grumbles possibly orchestrated by others.

Which leaves us with Jon Woods and his interests in owning part of the club, whatever they may be. Little is known of him apart from the fact that he made his money in information technology and has a somewhat woeful temperament. But a few precision inquiries would be enough to discover the salient facts if one could be bothered. A few years ago a development company for a new stadium made a presentation to him in his home study and he promised to get back to them after communicating details to the rest of the board. He hadn’t done so up to April this year. Nor is it known if he did in fact speak to the rest of the board on the subject. Meantime a concept of the same project is now in Bill Kenwright’s hands and has been since late last year. Woods may have been neatly circumvented by events.

If the third faction exists at all, individual or group, then it has been fairly stupid in which messengers it trusts. As usual in football, such messenger boys simply can’t resist leaking what they know to impress so-called ordinary fans. But of course what it also does is tell you more about the faction as well as the inconsequential messenger boy. This includes pointing inexorably toward the source. Step up through your investigatory gears and you will have your third faction. It isn’t difficult. Do your own research, ask your own questions.

In the background lurks the somewhat vague figure of large shareholder Lord Grantchester, nephew of the late John Moores. Rumours emerge every now and then of an alleged take over move, his funding of this or funding of that. One day one of the rumours might be accurate. Until then, he is merely a cipher, a wealthy fan with no interest other than watching the game. My view is that if he intended to do anything he would have done it by now. He is much wealthier than anyone else connected with the club and could buy and sell it many times over. The fact that he hasn’t done so speaks volumes. In the meantime his inaction merely adds grist to the mill of rumours that he had a major disagreement with members of the board and True Blue Holdings. Whatever the cause of the rumoured dispute it takes two to make an argument, but only one to make the first attempt at rapprochement. There isn’t much point speculating over Grantchester until either he or his antagonist(s) can bury the hatchet – preferably not in each other’s back or head.

Conspiracy theorists might even entertain the notion he is biding his time with the third faction, awaiting the best moment to make his move, or simply waiting for the apple to fall into his lap. In such circumstances guess which way the rumoured third faction would go.

Former club secretary and now CEO Michael Dunford is the final piece in the current jigsaw. Opinions of his impact vary wildly. Kenwright is apparently completely loyal to him. Nobody should under-estimate the number of hours he works or the intensity of his input. Nor should anyone doubt the kind of trauma Dunford endured during the latter year of the Johnson ownership and subsequent transition to True Blue Holdings. It’s a safe bet he knows where all the bodies are buried. Despite that, most fans I have spoken with are scathing in their condemnation of him – and I choose my words carefully. It hasn’t helped his image when he is rumoured to have said things like, “This isn’t a big club any more.” If true, he shouldn’t be surprised when fans question his motivation and ambition for the club. Acknowledging a current position is one thing, denying a future by implication is quite another. Rumours also abound that the NTL media deal foundered through his inaction, that his position was only saved by the intervention of Bill Kenwright. Make up your own mind whether missing out on NTL was a good thing or not, especially in view of their subsequent financial position and what happened when ITV welched on their deal with the Football League. Amongst other mundane administrative blunders was the decision to take only 1,200 tickets for the Chelsea away match, arguably our most important match of the season and one for which we could easily have sold three or four times as many. There are other examples.

Quietly smouldering in the background is the question of fans wider shares ownership. As we know, this is a subject increasingly and rightly on the national agenda for the game. There is no reason why Everton Football Club could or should avoid the debate. At present it is known the directors do not favour a rights issue on the basis that it would dilute values or might raise little worthwhile cash. Both of those opinions are open to considerable dispute. I believe this subject will come to the forefront again and the club will have to deal with it, hopefully in favour. Properly handled there is no reason why anyone should lose out or anyone make a profit, general economic climate notwithstanding. Fans would do well to clue themselves up on the subject and ready themselves for all the necessary arguments. Leave it to the “experts” and the academics and you deserve what you get, which is more of the repulsive same. You could do worse than study what happened with Celtic’s efforts.

The overall image is of a rickety, distinctly loose power structure at the club. Such structures are vulnerable to the woodworm of opportunism. Relative playing success has helped divert attention therefrom but there can be little doubt that a reversal of fortunes would bring back the Melledrew Tendency muttering at least as darkly as at any other time or at any other club. Some things never change. Once you lift a stone don’t be surprised at what you find clinging to the underside. Amongst them would likely be one of the spiv messenger boys acting the role of agent provocateur or even insider dealer. In short, the same kind of situation you get a billion times a day in a billion other companies anywhere in the world. Once the system changed to accommodate this kind of thing then why be surprised when it actually happened?

Despite all of it we have come a long way from the dark days of Peter Johnson’s ownership. One day you might even be told how close our club came to extinction. Do not think I exaggerate. We owe a huge debt to Bill Kenwright and Philip Carter. For all their weaknesses and apparent differences they eventually stood firm when it would have been much easier to walk and leave the club to financial vultures. Grantchester could have been there too but he chose not to. Even the rest of the board played their part – though there is now a question mark against their subsequent actions.

If David Moyes can now take the club into Europe and a reasonable run of games then the money should ease some of our immediate financial concerns. A lengthy run, however unlikely, would perhaps make some inroads into our long term debt. It might even steady some of the inevitable differences in the boardroom. The directors are only human beings after all is said and done, mere flesh and blood and as prone to error and success as everyone else.

The biggest question is who is loyal, and to whom or what?

Who benefits? Que bono?