The chaos at Everton football club continues with fresh reports today that the proposed takeover by 777 Capital Partners could be scuppered by the club’s other current lenders.
It was announced on Friday morning that Farhad Moshiri had agreed a deal to sell the Toffees to US investment consortium 777 Partners for around £500 million.
Now though, according to the Daily Mail those other groups who have put money into Everton might withdraw their support over concerns regarding 777’s involvement.
Those other lenders include a group called Image and Media Rights and MSP Sports Capital both of whom have put very considerable sums into the Blues, primarily to help finance the completion of the Bramley-Moore Dock stadium project.
MSP for example lent around £100 million to the club, which was orginally part of a package of finance that was potentially going to include more to secure a percentage stake in Everton.
That didn’t happen as MSP pulled out of further investment, alledgedly because of complications related to the other group’s loan.
This is the reason of course why 777 became involved again recently as Moshiri desperately sought finance to plug the gap that had now again opened up with MSP withdrawing.
Now, it seems that MSP along with the other group are both expressing serious concerns about 777 Partners and so they could both recend their loans!
Ever since their involvement with Everton became apparent again, there have been issues about 777 Partners, their financial position and the past activities of their key people as well as unrest among supporters of the other clubs they are currently involved with.
All of which put their potential ownership of the Toffees into question, certainly in terms of whether they have the finances to support their ambitions and if they would pass the various regulatory hurdles in place.
Were the other funders to withdraw it would leave 777 Partners having to find hundreds of millions more to secure their takeover. Can they do that?
So, who knows where we go from here.
None of these stories necessarily are accurate or mean that this deal won’t still go ahead but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth and so many questions remain unanswered.
And the Blues just cannot go from one failed ownership and resultant financial disaster to another catastrophic scenario with new owners.
What a mess this club is in. Nothing ever seems to get better or to resolve the situation positively and we just lurch from one almost comical crisis to another without any respite.
It sometimes feels as though there is an absolute certainty about the decline of Everton FC which no one or nothing can resolve or overcome.
Let us hope the players can ignore all this madness and find a way to get a result this afternoon against Arsenal. What happens on the pitch is ultimately how this club’s fate will be decided.