Everton AGM reveals huge losses

Last night Everton held their yearly love-in otherwise known as the club’s Annual General Meeting and revealed record-breaking losses of more than £111 million.

I don’t really know what the point of these events actually is other than the legal requirement to hold an AGM. There was the usual public relations stuff about how Everton are continuing with plans to be this or that in x-number of years. To be honest I feel quite jaded by all this.

This AGM did however reveal to shareholders and supporters those significant losses, which were announced right at the end of the meeting.

The only other piece of major news is that Alisher Usmanov will have first dibs on naming the Blues new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock, assuming it’s given planning permission.

That’s because the Russian multi-billionaire has put £30 million down for this privilege, and it does seem to further strengthen his involvement with the club. We will see how that develops.

For me though the scale of Everton’s losses is the main story.

Some of this is the result of up-front investment in the new stadium. Essentially though the Toffees are losing money as a business, and of course without Farhad Moshiri and Usmanov’s input, then the club would probably be in some trouble.

As it is they are skirting near the limits of what is allowed for under the Financial Fair Play rules and have slipped down the Deloitte club money rankings, now 19 out of 20 clubs.

But as long as you have a very wealthy owner who can put his or her own money into your club, you can always make sure you ultimately find a way round these rules. Look at how Chelsea and Manchester City have managed it over the past years.

What this does though mean is that it’s possible that unless the Blues can offload a significant number of players currently on the books, there will presumably be limited funds for new arrivals.

While Moshiri is wealthy he’s not Roman Abramovich rich, so I don’t know how much more he can provide for signings. And while Usmanov is hugely wealthy, how much more can or will he put in? That could be critical to the club’s future.

And what will this will mean for any transfer plans that Carlo Ancelotti has? I am assuming he was aware of the situation before he joined. However I suspect he thought he could salvage more from the current crop of players and that the scale of the re-build has taken him a little by surprise.

Anyway along with strategically enhancing the squad, (if possible), the number one transfer priority would seem to be finding a way to somehow get these unwanted players, (and their wages), off the books for the best possible price.

I’ve already talked about who those players might be. It seems to me that finding anyone prepared to pay half-decent money for footballers like Morgan Schniederlin, Gylfi Sugurdsson or Theo Walcott, is asking a lot. That’s before you start thinking about other even more average players such as Ommar Niasse, Sandro or Cuco Martina, although some of them are out of contract soon.

The only one who has left is Cenk Tosun, and he’s gone on a half-season loan to Crystal Palace. Unless he can pull some trees up at Selhurst Park, (an unlikely scenario), then he will probably be back at Goodison Park next season!

All this is the legacy of a number of past failures in the transfer market, under a succession of managers; Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce and Marco Silva. So many frankly mediocre footballers have been brought into this club that the accumulated wastage is huge.

What worries me longer-term is that Everton might have basically blown the transfer kitty Moshiri bequeathed and are now going to have to operate on a relative shoestring again for the foreseeable future, especially as paying for the new ground looms larger.

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Maybe that’s why the only player the club have bought in this window so far is a 17-year-old defender from Carlise United. Meanwhile other clubs that Everton might want to rival, such as Tottenham, are linked with signing high-profile top talent that can go straight into their first-team.

Perhaps operating with less money to spend might be a blessing in disguise. After all the Blues have been like a kid in a sweet shop with a big banknote in his pocket after years going without, who finally gets to blow it all on candy!

It will certainly be the ultimate test of Ancelotti’s acumen and pulling power as to whether he can still attract the kind of top-drawer talent Everton need, to fulfill all those ambitions for the club’s future talked about so much at this and past AGM’s.