Fortune Favours the Brave Or The Devil Is In The Detail
By Colin Fitz

Since the end of last season, I’ve wanted to post an article about debt finance — specifically securitization — and the effect the raising of funds has on the business organisation operating Everton Football Club. This was prompted mainly due to the many discussions I’ve had with regard to the apparent massive disparity in wealth between our city’s two great football teams.

If you’re one of the many undecided voters, please be patient while you read this article as it may give you a different perspective or perhaps confirm what you were thinking; if you’ve already decided, I hope that you’ll also read the article as it may endorse your position. I don’t apologise for the length of this piece as I feel that Everton Football Club are important, but I will apologise to those who may have covered, perhaps more succinctly, the same topics and expressed similar opinions before I had the opportunity to submit this article, which was written, when time permitted, over many weeks.

The financial figures, used throughout, are extracted or calculated from the EFC annual reports that are available to everyone; they’re to be found on the Official Everton website (www.evertonfc.com) under the Shareholders section. Where possible, I have included confirmation of my sources of information and supplied Internet links for you to examine. I would also like to confirm that at the moment I have no affiliation to any organisation for or against a move from Goodison Park.

I’m anxiously awaiting the outcome of the vote on relocating to Kirkby. Everton and Goodison Park have been an intrinsic part of my life; born in Walton and growing up in Anfield, I was (like many of you) carried in as a three-year-old wide-eyed toddler by my dad to witness the mighty Blues. The ground was a lot different in the early sixties but the passion, the values and the people were the same as today. The older fans had their heroes: Jones, Lawton, Mercer, Hickson and inevitably one William Ralph Dean… I soon had mine: Vernon, Young, Labone, Kendall, Ball, Harvey, Royle, West, to name but a few. Then, as the years went by, Latchford, Sharp, Sheedy, Reid, you know the rest.

Now in my late forties, I’m watching the skills of Arteta and have been teased by the sight of Fernandes giving a glimpse of perhaps what could be. I’ve been fortunate to witness in the 1980s arguably, at that time, the best team in the world — a time when all other teams thought “oh no, we’ve got Everton next week”; a time when we were peerless. My dad took me to my first game; I took him to his last — one which was infinitely more memorable, we paraded the championship trophy! So, as you can gather, Goodison Park is an important place to me; it’s been a constant throughout my life. I grew up there, had my wedding reception there, I’ve even had relatives die there. I’ve experienced the great times and the bad — how can you describe your feelings as Rush slotted the fourth past us?

Now I’ve not been taking you on a trip down Memory Lane to prove my credentials as an Evertonian; I’ve done it to demonstrate that football teams and their homes, be it Goodison or Anfield, are emotive subjects. Football isn’t just a sport; it’s an emotional issue that’s deeply woven into the fabric of society — arguably nowhere more so than with the support of the teams based in the City of Liverpool, in fact in many ways it’s an essential part of the culture of the area. This is not lost on the marketing people at Everton, who have exploited it for decades and have become adept in their professional approach to maximise a financial return on this aspect of football.

It started in an amateur way with the School of Science, the little club shops in Goodison Rd and Bullens Rd, and now it’s “The People’s Club”, iconic images of past players and teams on screens and on DVD, shirts, jackets, watches, ensuring that “If you know your history…. “then “You’re in my heart you’re in my soul” and providing a megastore, Internet e-commerce site and an outsourced retail partner to supply us with the merchandise that we readily consume, and which in turn provides the club with a multi-million pound revenue stream. I have no problem with this whatsoever; Everton, like every other long established club, have identified an opportunity to commercially exploit a resource and are endeavouring to maximise this opportunity for the benefit of the club and its supporters.

It would therefore appear to be paradoxical for Mr Wyness to now ask the supporters to place this emotional attachment to one side and make a decision with the head and not the heart, but I fully understand his position and I don’t have a problem with it. Football is a business, in business you make logical decisions based on the information presented to you. Let the heart rule the head at your peril; important decisions require the collection of commercial and technical data and the vision or entrepreneurial talent to bring the chosen decision to fruition.

Everton’s main revenue streams are: Goodison Park through its gate receipts; the revenue from the TV companies guaranteed by their continued presence in the Premiership, which in turn provides prize money at the rate of £500,000 a place; and income from sponsorship, advertising, merchandise, catering and other commercial activities.

Everton’s recent financial performance has been critically analysed by Joe Beardwood and you can find the article here www.toffeeweb.com/club/business/Finances07.pdf For those of you who like to digest the numbers, conduct longitudinal and cross sectional analysis, and calculate the ratios, you’ll appreciate this article as will anyone who doesn’t know one end of a balance sheet from the other. It’s a warts-and-all insight into the financial performance of Everton over the last eight years.

As Disraeli said, “there’s lies, damn lies and then there’s statistics”. You may be surprised to see that Joe indicates, based on the last accounts, that Everton are £41.6M in debt when Mr Wyness has clearly stated that the debt was at that time “somewhere between £26M to £27M, (www.bluekipper.com/mbe/wyness_interview_aug06.htm). So who’s right? Well they both are, Joe’s talking about the total debt, net current liabilities plus long-term creditors, and Mr Wyness is just talking about the long-term debt. Your current liabilities are met through cashflow, overdrafts and short-term finance, your long-term debt is related to and serviced by the performance of the business over the term of that debt, in this case 25 years. Mr Wyness is specifically talking about Everton’s securitization loan, which I shall look at in depth later.

Income

Below is a table illustrating where Everton’s revenue is generated:

It would appear that Everton’s two most important revenue streams dominate all others, those being gate receipts and the money derived from broadcasting and final finishing position — the merit payment. Is this performance any good? I don’t know, we need a frame of reference to compare, let’s look at our nearest and dearest using the three years’ accounts that are available on their website, 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06.

EFC Accounts

Season	Gate Receipts	TV & Merit	Sponsorship	Merchandising	Other	Total Turnover
2003/04	15,600,000	20,700,000	2,600,000	3,500,000	1,800,000	44,200,000
2004/05	18,700,000	29,500,000	4,200,000	5,400,000	2,000,000	59,800,000
2005/06	18,100,000	26,300,000	5,200,000	7,600,000	700,000	57,900,000
Total	52,400,000	76,500,000	12,000,000	16,500,000	4,500,000	161,900,000

In comparison, the disparity between Liverpool’s revenue streams isn’t as extensive, even taking into account the fact that they bundle all their commercial activities into one column, there’s almost symmetry across the categories. The most devastating aspect of this comparison is that all Liverpool’s figures are nearly double that of Everton’s, the single most overwhelming figure is the commercial total, combining Everton’s sponsorship and merchandising operations (which now includes catering) gives a grand total of £28.5M against over £100M. In addition to Liverpool’s lucrative worldwide merchandise demand, they operate a corporate lounge at Anfield called “The Heathcote Restaurant” which caters for 2,500 people and is staffed by the renowned chef, Paul Heathcote. Everton have a tent.

Bums on Seats

Due to the large disparity, this may not be a fair comparison when attempting to measure Everton’s business performance. Let’s look at Everton’s ability to fill their stadium and generate revenue in relation to the rest of the Premier League.

2006-07 Premiership Attendances

Everton’s premiership attendance is slightly above average; the club’s ability to fill their stadium over the course of the season is average and below that of Portsmouth, Reading, West Ham and many others. Ticket prices are comparatively cheap but there’s an enormous disparity between the three main London-based clubs and the rest of the Premier League.

Forecast

Now that we have some basic information, we can begin to construct a model on which to base a forecast in order that we may see the direction the club is going.

The column on the far right indicates an average spectator; this spectator represents an amalgamation of all types of paying spectator, obtained by dividing the gate receipts by the total attendance, this figure accommodates all season ticket, concession, full price etc, spectators attending all the games across the season that in turn have varying pricing structures. Only Everton know the breakdown of their attendance and gate receipts, by type and value, but this is a useful indicator on which to base a forecast. What can be observed is the large price increase between 2003-04 and 2004-05 and the impact it had on revenue to the club. Applying the price increase between seasons 2005-06 and 2006-07 we can forecast last seasons gate receipts that will be in the 2006-07 accounts.

Summary

· Everton’s turnover has increased by 52% in the past five seasons

· Everton rely heavily on two main sources of income, gate receipts and broadcasting revenue

· Gate receipts have increased by 35% in five seasons

· Media payments have increased by 39% in five seasons

· Commercially, Everton are light years away from the Premier League’s major clubs

· Everton’s ability to regularly fill their stadium is below that of all the major teams

· Everton’s ticket prices are below that of their immediate rivals

Expenditure

Here’s a simplified Profit and Loss account created by extracting figures from Everton’s accounts over the past five seasons, once player amortization is incorporated:

*2004 figures restated the following year at 47,330,000 and incorporate accountancy changes.

A key indicator for football clubs is the wages to turnover ratio; here’s Everton’s over the past five seasons and in relation to the Premier League’s leading clubs:

A ratio of between 50 – 60% is seen as desirable for Premier League clubs -
http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/news/article357006.ece

To quote Mr Kenwright directly from last year’s annual report:

“The Club’s annual wage bill as a proportion of turnover is 64% (2005:
51%). This increase, while necessary to support the investment in the
playing squad during the year, has meant that the total wage bill has
increased by 20% to £37.0m (2005: £30.8m). We will, of course, continue
to monitor this trend closely and take appropriate action as required.”

With this in mind, I would at the very least expect to see these types of figures in the 2007 accounts:

Summary

· Including changes in accountancy, Everton’s operating expenditure has increased by over 90% during the five-season period of analysis

· Everton’s wage bill has increased by 58% over the same period

· The wage bill has increased by 20% over the last trading period alone

· Everton have made a net loss in three out of the past five seasons

· Everton’s profits in the other two years have been small, £5k and £6k

· Everton’s wages–to-turnover ratio is higher than the accepted level of efficient financial management with regard to Premier League clubs

Combining the information gleaned from income and expenditure statistics and trends, we can attempt a Profit and Loss (P&L) forecast for seasons 2006-07 and 2007-08. Using our £25.13 per spectator figure, no ticket price increase, and the belief that the 22 homes games seen in 2006-07 will at least increase to 24 in 2007-08 on the basis that Everton are in four competitions.

The 38% increase in Media and Merit payments reflects the enhanced Sky Sports and Setanta Sports deal with the Premier League: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/18/nfootie18.xml

Coupled with improved expectations on the field of play (principally not exiting cup competitions in the first rounds), and based on the increased media package for 2007-08, the forecast (shown above) is not beyond the realms of possibility; player trading will of course have an affect on these totals.

The key to controlling costs or expenditure is an essential aspect of this forecast, as it is to business in general. Some of you may be wondering why Everton have one of the smallest squads in the Premier League, a squad that has been further reduced since the start of last season. Maybe you’re wondering why Everton have acquired a reputation for not paying high salaries, why are we so concerned about debt when most of the Premier League clubs are investing heavily in their playing staff and ground infrastructure (Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United to name a few).

Whilst this strict financial control on how the club operates is implemented by Mr Wyness and would appear to be prudent business practice, the initiation of this control lies elsewhere and to discover this we need to look closely at the Securitization loan which Everton took out several years ago.

Securitization Loan

Most of you will be aware that, in 2002, Everton took out a loan secured against the future revenues derived from gate receipts, specifically the sale of season tickets and match day tickets at Goodison Park. The terms of this loan are £30M at a fixed interest rate of 7.79% paid back over a 25-year period, here’s a breakdown:

It’s clear that money is expensive. Everton borrow £30M and pay back £68M. But this is a good deal, the interest rate is relatively low, Manchester United have a multiple-element loan, some of which is at over 14%, so it’s safe to say that in terms of market costs Everton have an attractive deal.

The architecture of this type of loan is immensely complicated and is not common knowledge to the general football-going public but I feel that every match-going Evertonian should have a little insight into this type of deal and specifically the covenants attached to it — after all, it’s our money that’s paying for it!

When securitization, as a product, first became available to football clubs, only a few could meet the strict qualifying criteria. Size, fan base, length established and standing meant that specifically only Premier League clubs could satisfy the potential investors in what was seen by many to be a volatile market.

Everton, along with clubs such as Newcastle, Manchester City and infamously Leeds United, met the qualification and in 2001-02 Everton enlisted the services of an intermediary, Bear Stearns, to set up the elements and write a prospectus for potential investors to consider.

As previously mentioned, the architecture of these arrangements is highly complex but in essence the basic concept is as follows:

                        1. Identify and isolate the originator’s (club) asset that will provide collateral (security).

                        2. Identify the method of servicing the prospective debt through gate receipts and produce a legal agreement.

                        3. Isolate the asset (in the case of Everton, the Stadium) into a bankruptcy-remote, legally separate entity, commonly known                             as a special purpose vehicle or SPV.

                        4. Apply protective measures in the form of covenants, restrictions which directly protect the main asset and govern the                             originator’s financial operation, and obtain an investment grade rating from a provider such as Fitch or Moodys.

                        5. Establish a series of bank accounts in order to provide lock gates to restrict the direction of cashflow from the club to the                             investor.

In essence the investors (typically pension funds and insurance companies) look for assurances that a steady cash flow to repay the principle debt exists and is sustainable over the term of the loan. Historical evidence with regard to fanbase and turnover would be used; in the case of Newcastle, they had to provide evidence of gate receipts going back to 1892 (Brookfield & Miller 2006).

Once the mechanism to protect and service the debt is in place, the agreement is enhanced by a series of covenants being applied that encourages investor confidence and increases ratings. A top rating is AAA; the recent Arsenal securitization attracted this level of rating leading to high investor confidence. In general, the stricter the covenants, the greater the level of confidence from the investor and potentially the better the opportunity to obtain more competitive interest rates. This type of loan uses the price structure of gilts to set a rate, typically between 7-8% fixed for the duration of the loan.

I’ll quote directly from a paper written by Tom Burns of Aberdeen University:

“Stuart Brinkworth, a lawyer who is involved in football securitisations, has described the typical legal structure adopted by the clubs. The parent company that owns the football club creates a subsidiary company (“Stadco”) to hold title to the stadium. The football club then leases the stadium from the new company and covenants to play its home games in the stadium. Stadco then borrows the required sum of money for the securitisation from a SPV. This SPV would have been set up by the parent company to issue bonds or notes in the capital markets. The loan is secured in favour of the SPV by Stadco granting security (i.e. mortgage) over all its assets supported by an unsecured guarantee from the football club and also by a secured guarantee from the parent.”

These covenants, whilst not secret, are certainly confidential and are designed to protect the investors’ stake, the loan, in the business. Three common covenants applied to football securitizations are: a restriction on the level of future indebtedness (typically between £10 –20M; control over the staff costs / turnover ratio; and restrictions on payment of dividends. These are the standard covenants, an agreement will probably contain many. One of Newcastle’s more notable and perhaps topical covenants surrounds their requirement to play all their home games within the City of Newcastle (Brookfield & Miller 2006). If they ever wanted to leave St James Park, I assume they would need to convince the bondholders that they wouldn’t lose support and therefore have lower gate receipts ..… perhaps they could have a vote to demonstrate that they have the support of their fans!

The only mention of an additional covenant in the Everton securitization can be found here, http://www.securitization.net/news/article.asp?id=283&aid=1829&print=Y

Of the three most notable securitizations, Leeds borrowed £60M, Newcastle borrowed £55M and Everton, as you know, borrowed £30M. All three used the funds for different purposes:

Leeds used their money to buy players and fund their salaries with the aim of getting into the Champions League on a regular basis… fine on paper but unfortunately football is played on grass and we are all aware of the disaster that has taken place at Elland Road.

Newcastle used their loan for some refinancing and the development of St James Park which has resulted in their turnover rising from £45M before the loan to over £83M last year, with average attendances of over 52,000 in the league.

Everton used their loan exclusively for refinancing an existing debt. With hindsight, and perhaps with a better vision, if Everton had taken out a £60M securitization loan, we would now be moving into a stadium on the Kings Dock, a stadium that 86% of Evertonians wanted.

For anyone interested in this matter, further information can be found at this website:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/eslj/issues/volume4/number3/burns/

Summary

· Everton have a £30M loan organised by Bear Stearns

· The bond holder is Prudential

· The money was used by Everton for refinancing their business

· None of the money was used for improvement to the ground infrastructure

· Other clubs, notably Newcastle, have used their loan to generate more income

· Everton pay £2,767,000 every year and will do until 2028

· Total Repayment is £68M

· The associated covenants apply restrictions on the business activity of the club

· Fortune favours the brave, a £60M loan would have secured Kings Dock

To briefly summarize Everton’s situation, their need to compete financially is compromised by their inability to generate sufficient funds through their stadium, operating at 91% capacity. To illustrate this fact, if they were to fill the stadium to 100% occupancy throughout the season this would only yield a further £1,742,965 at last season’s prices. Without additional and sustained European football, the additional broadcasting and merit payments are also unlikely to provide substantial funding. The main areas for potential development are to be found in the commercial categories of corporate hospitality, sponsorship, advertising, merchandise, business conferencing and leisure.

Everton, whilst endeavouring to control their costs, are victims of market forces in the football economy. Their main cost, as with all professional football clubs, is their playing staff and their associated costs. The greater your aspirations, the more you need to spend.

Everton are literally at a crossroads, the choices are:

1. Do nothing, stay at Goodison with the existing facilities

2. Redevelop the current stadium

3. Move to a new stadium

Option 1: Do Nothing

As the data in this article supports, this option will inevitably lead to the decline of Everton as a force to be reckoned with in the Premier League. Everton will be financially compromised and left behind as all their major competitors invest in ground infrastructure and develop new and innovative revenue streams.

Option 2: Redevelop Goodison

This could be an achievable proposition if substantial funds became available. The well documented footprint and geography problems are solvable by engineers and architects; re-route Walton Lane through an underpass, demolish all the houses around the existing ground to produce a wonderfully landscaped true Goodison Park containing a state-of-the-art stadium and leisure facilities — they could even re-open the old station on Walton Lane / Cherry Lane to provide improved transportation links. Now unless Bill Gates has held a season ticket in the Lower Bullens for the last 20 years without anyone noticing and intends to whip his chequebook out, this will never happen — nor will any of the various development options as neither the availability nor the desire to raise the finance required is available.

Everton’s position is clear, they feel that the potential disruption to business (remember the securitization covenants) will be too great, they’re reluctant to borrow the money, stadium redevelopment attracts no grants, and there appears to be no willing enabling partner to provide funds.

Option 3: Move to a new stadium

The third option “move to a new stadium” is (from a logical perspective) Everton’s only truly realistic choice if they wish to maintain their standing as a force in English football. Everton’s preferred move is to a site in Kirkby on the basis that the plan has an enabling partner in Tesco and a cooperative local council that seem only too willing to assist in order to bring the whole development plan to fruition.

The Kirkby Relocation Vote

Why Everton are giving their fans a vote is frankly a mystery to me; the indisputable fact is that Goodison Park as a revenue source is unable to meet the financial demands of a competitive Premier League club and the figures in this article support this contention — that is to say that additional gate receipts and increased revenue from further commercial activities are essential. It appears that the vote is being offered on the insistence of the chairman, Bill Kenwright, a staunch Evertonian; it’s on record that he doesn’t want to be remembered as the man who took Everton away from Goodison Park.

Mr Kenwright and Mr Wyness are the most visible members of the Everton Board — they take the plaudits and they take the criticisms levied at the club by its more vociferous fans, they’re easy targets for people who constantly ask “Where’s the money, Bill?” “Why can’t you find an investor, Bill?” Well to be fair, they’ve found an investor; they’ve delivered Kirkby as a solution and Tesco as an enabling partner, they’re telling us that this is the Deal of the Century, that this deal will leave the club with only a small amount of additional debt; it’s a deal that most Premier League clubs would give their right arm for.

It sounds too good to be true… and frankly it is.

I’m a big fan of Mr Kenwright and I don’t like to knock him; he’s put as much of his own money into the club as he can and once that ran out he’s begged and borrowed further funds for a club he has in his heart. To my knowledge, he’s the only chairman in the Premier League not to take a salary from his club, but on this most important of issues he’s staying remarkably quiet while Mr Wyness leads us all up the garden path with his double-speak and misinformation. Here are some examples:

In answer to questions posed by the Shareholders Association (SA) found at www.efcsa.org/news/KWKirkby look at some of the responses Keith Wyness (KW):

SA: "If we move to a stadium in Kirkby who will own it?"

KW: "We would have a peppercorn rent and a 999-year lease which is effectively freehold. It would be our asset and we believe valued at around £150M."

Mr. Wyness is asked a question about the stadium and clearly answers it with a question about the land. The lease, just like LFC’s lease on Stanley Park, will be 999 years.

SA: Asked about the total projected construction cost of the stadium, you said it will be "less than £100million" a) Can you now elaborate further? For instance, what would be the minimum? b) How much will Everton be expected to pay? c) And how will we fund this?

KW: “I expect our final contribution to be around £50M. This will be funded by the sale of Goodison and sale of naming rights. Should those 2 sources not reach £50M then we would add some long term debt.”

Goodison’s value is listed in the accounts for 2006 as £13,097,550, page 23 2006 accounts.

On July 21st 2007 in the Daily Post, Mr Wyness expands on the sale of Goodison and naming rights:

“Everton’s contribution would then be around £30-35M – recouped from the sale of Goodison Park and a multi-million pound naming rights deal for the new ground”

Mr. Wyness in an interview with Jessica Shagginess, Liverpool Daily Post, July 17th 2007 said:

“Tesco will contribute £50m to the new stadium on land contributed by Knowsley Council in a deal which will leave it with minimal debts. The land in Kirkby is currently regarded as worthless, but with planning permission for a Tesco store and shopping complex, which will be half the size of the Trafford Centre, the value will rocket to £50m. The supermarket giant will pay that price to Knowsley Council and the money will be made as a contribution towards the cost of the stadium.”

On July 16th 2007 Tesco, in response to Mr Wyness telling the press that Tesco are contributing £50m to the Kirkby Stadium project, e-mails a Radio Merseyside phone in to clarify the situation. Tesco state that the “£50M will be derived from the value of the total project” not as a cash contribution to the stadium itself.

In summary Tesco will pay an as yet unknown sum of money to Knowsley for the whole project site. Once planning permission is obtained, the land allocated for the stadium will be donated to Everton under a 999-year lease, the terms of which are not clear (LFC’s 999-year rent is £330k pa).

The land will then, according to Mr Wyness, have a value of £50M, hence the clarification e.mail from Tesco. Tesco at no time are contributing £50M to the actual stadium.

Tesco’s contractors Barr will then build a stadium on this site. Mr Wyness has said that the asset value will be £150M; therefore if the land is £50M the stadium is valued at £100M.

Mr Wyness you need a new calculator. Using your frankly optimistic financial projections, this is what you’re saying:

And this is being optimistic, the reality is more likely to be that the Goodison Park land (once the stadium is demolished and being in a relatively poor area, please don’t tell me that Tesco’s want it when they’re building one of Britain’s largest supermarkets just over a mile away as part of project Jennifer) will raise approximately £10M. If Everton (and it’s a big if) do find a willing partner for a £20M naming rights deal, then does anyone honestly think that they’d pay the full amount upfront to the detriment of their cashflow? Of course they won’t; they’d pay it in yearly instalments that would hit the P&L as income but we’d have to find the finance.

Mr Wyness mentions about Tesco cashing in their club points with Barr in order to obtain a stadium at a discounted price… what discount and what price is never mentioned. What I do know is that the stadium industry operates on very tight margins— 3% net (Legal Week 2006) — and, unless I’m mistaken, Barr are a business and not a charity. Finally, there is the question of rising costs over the construction period of the project that the wise indicate is in the region of 10%. So a more honest assessment would be:

Taking into account the averages between the best-case scenarios, produced by Mr Wyness, and my more realistic scenario we are left with a deficit of £80,675,000.

As there are no explanations forthcoming from the pro-Kirkby Everton Board on this matter, I can only assume that this is the figure that either the Everton Board or a future owner is prepared to borrow for financing the new stadium. This will cost, over a 25-year term at 1.5 points over base, £7,079,384 per annum.

Where Mr Wyness obtains his figures from god only knows but mine are derived from what he’s actually said.

Other instances of figures being thrown at the fans are numerous, the most ridiculous is the Liverpool / Manchester corridor and having access to 4.5M people by moving five miles. The northwest has the highest concentration of Premier League clubs in the country; peripheral towns around Liverpool are well catered for with the strong rugby league teams such as Wigan, Warrington and St Helens. Even if there were to be a mass exodus of people to Kirkby, the filling of the stadium with general spectators will not generate sufficient revenue, it has already been demonstrated that the greatest opportunities for growth lie in the corporate and commercial aspects of a new stadium.

I personally find the handling of information by Mr Wyness to be grossly offensive; I know he’s an intelligent man so I can only assume that, by passing this inaccurate and illogical rubbish off as an argument in favour of moving to Kirkby, he must be of the opinion that we’re stupid enough to believe it. The final thing I want to say about Mr Wyness concerns his infamous “No Plan B” statement. Any CEO or in fact anyone in a managerial position whatsoever always has a contingency plan, and ultimately I don’t think that there can be too many people who still think that we will stay for too long at Goodison Park.

The vote in reality is this: vote Yes for Kirkby or vote No for “I think you need to think again, Mr Wyness”