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Why Kenwright must resign immediately
Bill Kenwright should resign immediately as Chairman of Everton Football Club.
Let’s start by stating that this article is written more in sorrow than in anger. In 2009 he was rightly inducted into Everton’s Hall of Fame. In a vote by fans he was third in the poll behind Duncan Ferguson and David Unsworth. We haven’t forgotten that in 2000, almost single-handedly, Bill Kenwright rescued the club when he bought out Peter Johnson.Who can forget those dog days? The sacking of Joe Royle, the endless flirting with relegation, disastrous signings, the best players leaving and the club reduced to the laughing stock of the Premiership. No wonder the Kopites unfurled that infamous banner, ‘Agent Johnson – Mission Accomplished’. Bill Kenwright mortgaged every possession and still had to rely on investment from his ‘friend’ Paul Gregg – remember him?
The best decision he ever made was to appoint David Moyes as manager, then to support him through thick and thin, and unlike certain Russian billionaires, allow him to actually manage the team. In the last five seasons we’ve finished in the top eight, the squad patiently built as players have been developed and nurtured. With limited funds Moyes has achieved miracles. Every season our prospects have looked brighter.
Other successes have included the club’s anti-racism campaigns, the community initiatives, the women’s team and support for the Former Players’ Foundation. Over the last ten years a sense of stability if not pride has been reinstated.
Even where it’s gone wrong the situation has been beyond the club’s control, the failure to build a new stadium on King’s Dock in 2003 was solely down to lack of funds. Bill Kenwright is a millionaire not a billionaire and other than the discovery of oil in Drury Lane that’s unlikely to change.
So where did it all start to go wrong? For me it was 2007 when ‘Destination Kirkby’ was announced. The fact was that a large minority of fans weren’t just opposed but appalled. The subsequent public enquiry revealed that even co-sponsors Tesco described the proposed new stadium as ‘modest’.
Just who is running the club? In 2006 Robert Earl (former CEO of Hard Rock) bought Paul Gregg’s shares, apart from getting Sylvester ‘Rocky’ Stallone to appear at Goodison, his involvement with the club has been limited to say the least. Does he ever attend matches? Other board members include the anonymous Jon Woods and Sir Philip Carter who also never makes any public statements.
At an early stage in his career Bill Kenwright appeared in Coronation Street, the search for new investment and/or the sale of Everton has resembled a long running soap opera or history repeated entirely as farce.
In 2004 Fortress Sports Fund were punted as new investors and then mysteriously disappeared from the scene. In recent years financier Keith Harris (no re-cycled jokes or clichés about Orville) was appointed to ‘find a buyer’. So how do we reach the situation where a Far Eastern ‘hedge fund manager’ is identified as a potential buyer, only to be revealed as a con-artist living in a one-bedroomed flat in Manchester? It just reeks of desperation, incompetence or both.
For years fans have been placated with the promise that sales of players would be re-invested in the purchase of new players. Recently the excuse was that ’85% of available funds’ was being directed towards the training ground at Finch Farm. One thing the infamous Blue Union – Bill Kenwright meeting did was to expose the brutal truth that every penny from transfers and the sale of Bellefield is being directed to pay off the interest charges. Why have the banks lost confidence in the club? What do they know that we don’t?
The danger is that Everton will be reduced to a fire sale of players to appease the banks, with Fellaini, Jagielka and Baines the first to go. With our best players leaving we will then lose our most valuable asset – David Moyes.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Blue Union meeting with Kenwright it must qualify as a public relations catastrophe, it makes for painful reading. Despite the claims of breaches of confidentiality and threats of legal action, the accuracy of the transcript has not been denied. A chief executive can sack half the workforce, cut pay, reduce moral to zero and still remain in charge. In the long run you cannot run a football club without the support of the fans.
The Shareholders’ Association has also been treated with contempt, AGMs have been abandoned and replaced with ‘Forums’. In 2009 in response to persistent enquiries about the club’s finances, Bill Kenwright responded with, ‘I’m not answering your question… I’m bored with your question… you’re not getting an answer to the question.’
In the last week the final straw for many fans, like me, who continued to give Bill Kenwright the benefit of the doubt was the last-minute departure of Mikel Arteta. Despite poor form and injuries over the last two seasons he was without doubt our talisman, a player who could turn games and someone who was, apparently, committed to the club. We didn’t even have the consolation of a Lescott Mark II, ‘he’s just a greedy beggar’, Arteta was so desperate to leave a club bereft of ambition, that he took a £500,000 a year pay cut.
The club and Bill Kenwright seem to have retreated into the bunker of denial, any criticism of the ‘Dear Leader’ is the work of a tiny handful of ‘malcontents’, ‘renegades’ and ‘traitors’. Sorry, this is Everton not North Korea, we pay our money and we have the right to criticise.
For the good of the club Bill Kenwright should resign while he is still in credit and with his credibility intact. The alternative is a long, debilitating battle with the fans, as with nuclear war the only outcome is mutually assured destruction and our children will inherit the desert.
We need an interim board appointed, with fans represented on it, that will have as its main agenda the sale of the club and new investment.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum.
Richard Knights
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27 Comments
Thanks for everything Bill, but now is the time to sell up.
We need an interim board appointed, with fans represented on it, that will have as its main agenda the sale of the club and new investment.
Nail on the head. Enough is enough.
Arteta left to play champions league football which everton cannot offer at the moment – there are only 4 places available – therefore realistically we shouldn’t expect to qualify as a right, and even if more funding became available it is unlikely that champions league football would come here for a couple of years – by then Arteta’s best days will be behind him. Why are some fans unable to understand that he left to play at a higher level (champions league) – personally while dissapointed to see him leave i feel his displays of the last year do not warrant the exceedingly high salary he was paid – it was a good deal for the club.
Why is it expected by many fans that there are queues of people wanting to buy everton? The cost of buying a club (no idea of its value but lets say £80 million) would be £80 million which would get them a premier league team needing several hundred million pounds speniding on a new stadium to increase revenue- therefore an outlay of around £250 million would be needed before any spending on the team is considered. What sane person would spend this as part of an investment? Realistically it would have to be an evertonian with a bucket load of disposable income or a sheikh/similar billionaire purchasing the club as a play thing (a huge gamble – only need to see what happened across the park!).
Yes the fans should always strive forthe best for the club but need to work alongside and not against as fans protests will lead to nothing but embarassment brought on the club. Be realistic, everton fc is not a jewel waiting to be bought, it is a great club that needs enormous funding to take it forwards. Bill Kenright has the clubs interests at heart – this should not be forgotten or taken for granted.
Arteta is finished, he looks good for the first 5 mins and then retreats into obscurity. How many goals has he scored and how many matches has he been the “talisman”? Luckily we held on to the crown jewels that is Baines, Jags, Fellaini and Coleman
Be careful what you wish for in a new owner. Nevertheless someone needs to answer where the expenditure is going. I’m not sure getting rid of BK is the answer though.
We all agree that we need to sell the club – but I don’t agree with this “anyone is better than Bill” approach – for all you’ve said above about what the club has achieved, you can look at all the clubs who failed miserably even to stay in the Prem.
They didn’t paln to fail, but the prem is a hard place and just shuffling places at the board wont change that.
We don’t just need any new owner, we need a billionaire, winning the league is not longer about the best club, its about who has the deepest pockets.
Kenwright & his cronies need to go too many lies now. Regarding Arteta yes £10m for a player who has not been same since injury good deal IF we had time to replace we didn’t because the board knew someone had to be sold to keep the club going Arteta more or less said it himself that’s why he was sold at 22.59 on deadline day January will be the same unless somebody comes with fresh money & I don’t think they will while Kenwright is on charge!!! Please go NOW
Arteta was sold because he put in a transfer request! – He wanted to leave
Absolutely fantastic piece, cap doffed.
Some of the responses focussed on Arteta, pulled from the wider context of the article as a whole, really does sum up just how naive some people are.
99% factual, absolutely bang on..yet all you can come back with is “Arteta wanted to go”.
Incredible.
Boycey. You are so deluded. Do you honestly believe that Arteta left because he handed in a transfer request… which didn’t .. he spoke to Moyes for 5 mins and said he thought it best for all if he went. Thats not a transfer request… you write a transfer request. The Transfer went through at that time so the money went straight to the bank. You can be sure in Jan that Moyes will not have the approx £16,500,000 that they got on transfer deadline day. Kenwright in the Blue Union meeting stated he would not sell “Fellaini, Howard, Baines or Jagielka”.. omitting Arteta, Rodwell and Barkley. Look Rodwell or Barkley going in Jan.
Al -I’ve no proof that a transfer request was or wasn’t handed in – however there are plenty of quotes from Arteta stating his desire to leave Everton for champions league football and for the good of the club. Now it may firmly be the case that the club had to sell and the champions league quote was a smokescreen. However, for a player of his ability I’ve no doubt that he wanted to test himself in the champons league opn a regular basis and this was the real reason he ‘wanted’ to leave. If I was still 16 I’d have the blue tinted glasses on and not be able to understand why anybody would leave the club – however, now I’m a realist and understand why he would want a greater challenge – champions league football.
Staveros – the are no doubt some valid points but we have to be realistic. For example, 85% of the revenue may indeed go towards the costs of finch farm including salaries. If this figure was slashed closer to 75% (a more sustainable business model) then we may not be able to compete with other clubs and therefore keep the many valuable players we have. The club have continually been able to resign players on improved and extended contracts, increasing the % of revenue going towards salaries but that can only go on so long punching above our weight, and it appears thats were we’re at. And yes would lead to a fire sale in january or next summer if we had spent money now which was not there to spend. Should we be adding to our debt??
Of the other such as the kirkby catastrophe – I was totally against as a fan but as a business it made sense and I believe would have led to a takover as the club would be mmuch more desirable with a new stadium. A potential new owner would not be put off because a new ground is outside the city boundaries.
Boycey, aside from the fact I struggle to find much logic on most of what you have posted thus far..I am particularly interested in this last part; “Of the other such as the kirkby catastrophe – I was totally against as a fan but as a business it made sense and I believe would have led to a takover as the club would be mmuch more desirable with a new stadium. A potential new owner would not be put off because a new ground is outside the city boundaries.”
What is it that leads you to believe that a mid-range stadium in Kirkby would make Everton a more attractive business proposition? I don’t see that at all. And, in fact, Mr Kenwright confirmed to The Blue Union when asked specifically “no..I don’t get that”..when asked if the stadium issue was presenting a barrier to investment.
Personally, I think the stadium issue, from a takeover perspective, is something that is built up as an excuse.
Aston Villa don’t have a new stadium, Chelsea didn’t, Man City don’t even own theirs. To me it just smacks of the average fan trying to be too smart again.
If football is a ‘business’ and you have to show a profitable model to be attractive to a take over..then explain to me where Abramovic and Sheikh Mansour are planning on making back their multi-BILLION pound investment??
Roman Abramovich’s yacht cost £300m..and people are going on about putting 10k on our gate figure!!! The numbers are inconsequential.
Any takeover of this club needs to be a case of “what can you do for Everton”, not “what can Everton do for you”.
Moving us to Kirkby would have torn the heart and soul from this club, and any investor/owner who WOULD have been turned on by that, is quite simply not the kind of owner that is wanted here. Sadly, before anyone tries to turn that into a positive…it’s exactly what Mr Kenwright was going to do..had it not been for those pesky kids and the government!
I’d be happy if we had a fantastic new stadium, debts cleared and making a profit, but weren’t doing so well on the football pitch… the pitch can always be sorted with new players and a manager but you start with the foundations first -a new stadium.
Don’t delude yourselves, Arteta like Pienaar is a football mercenary and like the former there was the continual rumour of him leaving/wanting CL football etc. How magnanimous was it taking a paycut from £75k or whatever a week?
RE the wider picture of our ownership. If you want a chicken farmer or Thai criminal running the club for his own ends then fine. But if any one of you sit near BK and see what the man is about and his love of the Blues then you might think twice what you want.
There is obviously something rotten in the corporate governance of the club but let’s focus on that and who has the fingers in the till rather than a scapegoated figurehead.
What a load of rubbish. I’m sick of people calling for BK to go, and talking about going on a march. What good will any of this do? None, that’s the answer. Granted we need investment, but some people are going the wrong way about things.
sad to see what seems to be intelligent people still backing Kenwright deluded by his blue bill persona ! as for careful what you wish for ? could it be any worse than what it already is the club is damaged beyond repair at the moment it has zero future under Kenwright he must realise that and step aside
You know what, I am fed up with so called EFC fans on these forums! they are no more than tin foil hat, twin towers, nobody landed on the moon conspiracy freaks, with way too much internet time. They get a situation or a quote, and totally twist it to what they think it might mean. The fact is nobody wants to buy Everton. Multi millionaires are not stupid, if they wanted to buy the club and BK tried to stop them, I am sure they could find ways of making that public, like I don’t know 50 million different avenues. You want BK to resign! OK question. Who is the new chairman we are going to appoint? You see, not in any of the forums do you see those suggestions. The ideal man who is going to take us forward, who is he? All you hear is stuff like, a fans representitive board or the likes. First of all, we all like to think we know more than the pofessionals, but 99.9% of the time we do not. Also name me one other board in the premiership that has a fans interim board, or has ever had one! Football clubs are run by owners, and business men. To be honest I am ashamed I am being named in the same group as such a sad bunch of spoilt little brats. The whole attidude smacks of, other clubs are getting taken over and getting money so why aren’t we? Lets stamp our feet and go on the forums. The fact is, other clubs are more financially viable, due to a multitude of different reasons. Lets stop all the bitching and moaning, and face the facts of were we are.
Anychance we could have a few articles about football. These storys are boring!!
Two faced article
Non Spoilt Brat – top rant – anyone taking bets as to how long it will be before Stavros deletes it as he doesn’t like criticism
Non Spoilt Brat
Just to be clear here, i’ve criticised the actions of TBU in the past and i think they’re going to have to do a lot (and i do mean a lot) of work to convince the average fan that they’re not an extreme fringe group. I happen to think that more recently they’ve realised that they have to be seen as whiter than white and are making efforts to redress the balance and it is starting to convince people that they are not nutters/conspiracy theorists. It’s going to take a long time, but if things don’t improve on and off the pitch and they try to appear reasonable and moderate, they will get more backing.
Right, just to set out my stall, not so long ago i was firmly pro kenwright. But now, i’ve actually took a step back, dug myself out of the trench i was in and actually looked at the performance of the board.
You accuse the ‘tin hat brigade’ of getting “a situation or a quote, and totally twist[ing] it to what they think it might mean”
Appreciate hypocrisy much? Read THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE
“The fact is nobody wants to buy Everton”
Based on what? a ‘situation’, being we haven’t sold the club yet and ‘twisting’ it to what you think it might mean…
The FACT is Kenwright has not done the one thing that any owner does when they seriously want to sell a possession. He’s yet to publicly name his price… If you believe TBU you will see that they weren’t even allowed to ask this key question in their meeting.
Granted this doesn’t explain why no-one has come forward and said that they made an offer which was rejected, but just because we haven’t heard about anyone making an offer doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened! This is yet another ‘situation’ that people are ‘twisting’ to support Kenwright. Think about it, until TBU got involved we didn’t know about the joker in his Manchester Apartment trying to buy Everton, just because we don’t hear about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I suppose this in itself is twisting the situation to my own end, but hey, i’m showing that everyone is guilty of hypocrisy, even those who appear to support Kenwright.
As for ‘who else do you suggest to run the club’, well if the Banks decide to call in the debt and Kenwright can’t pay, it may very well go the same way as it did for those-from-across-the-park-who-shall-not-be-named. I.e the bank appoints a board to sell the club, as such the best entity to ask as to whom should run the club is probably the bank, not a fellow fan!
I agree that the fans should not get a place on any interim board, they’re too close to the club to make a sound business decision.
I note with interest your comment that a club should be run by a Businessman, I would add the word ‘competant’ in there too and after the recent release of the TBU transcript, Kenwright would fail to meet that criteria… it’s taken him 10 years to understand the books. FFS… Doesn’t that say it all!
The reason other clubs are more financially viable than us is because they haven’t been mismanaged at board level for 2 decades of which our chairman has been leading us for over half (and was a board member before).
We are where we are because of this board, they have sold and mortgaged every asset we have, they have failed to deal with the stadium issue, they have dramatically increased the levels of debt, they have lied to the fans, they have overseen the relative stagnation of the club, they have alienated the fans, invariably failed to make a profit from anything but player sales, failed to support their manager with anything but the proceeds from player sales. The FACT is we don’t make a significant enough profit (if any at all) in order to fund transfers and who’s fault is that?
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League, we have the 13th highest turnover in the premier league (as of 09-10) and yet spent amongst the least on transfers, because we are up to our eyeballs in debt and don’t have a plan to get us out of it that doesn’t involve selling our best players.
This board has failed to take Everton forward, the only thing they have done is employ and continue to employ Moyes.
“You accuse the ‘tin hat brigade’ of getting “a situation or a quote, and totally twist[ing] it to what they think it might mean”
Appreciate hypocrisy much? Read THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE
“The fact is nobody wants to buy Everton”
Based on what?”
I”LL WRITE IN CAPITALS LIKE YOU (you condescending dick). Based on what? Maybe based on the fact that nobody with more than 250 quid in the bank has actually made a bid to buy us.
Whatever you think of Kenwright and the good and the very bad he has done. If anyone really wanted to buy us I’m pretty sure they’d start shouting about in the papers if Kenwright was blocking such a move.
It’s incredibly naive to think otherwise.
Brilliantly written article!
Everton are a massive club with a huge history and potential – the nucleus of a good squad and a great fan base – why can QPR and Blackburn attract investment before we can?
Kenwright and Moyes have turned the club around from the dark days of Peter Johnson but with every season we fall further behind the top teams. It’s a sorry state of affairs when Sunderland and Stoke are easily outspending you!!!
If Kenwright cannot fund the club, which we all know he can’t, then he needs to step aside and either bring in an investor himself or let someone else appoint someone.
Whilst I admire his principals I have a feeling that he is waiting for a British (preferably scouse) Everton fan billionaire and I’m afraid it could be a long wait!
Good luck with the march on Saturday – and thanks Bill for all of your efforts!
I think Everton should get Sir Terry who took tesco from an average supermarket to the whole high street under one roof , i dont care what you think of tesco,the guy is what this club needs a real buisness man he could give us more than poor old bill
I, too, believe that the sale of Arteta so close to the transfer window closure has shown poor strategy- however, I do not believe that we should continue with this “Better than Bill” attitude.
We unfortuantely are not a rough diamond waiting to be cleaned up- we have assembled a strong, but small, squad that inhibits the qualities of Evertonians and we have a beyond brillaint manager- however, with the stadium and other debts we are simply not attractive enough for investors.
All this march serves is to show that we are not together at the club, and I personally believe that it is this togetherness and strength that is our MOST sellable attribute.
Instead of POINTLESS marching, why don’t all those participating spend the afternoon chasing leads for buyers? Or at very least start thinking up ideas that may actually benefit the club. Because, they will find it is easier to contribute to a problem than assist in a way out.
Who’s going to pay him for his shares? And don’t say he should walk away with nothing because that’s just not right……..resign from a company he effectively owns? Are you off your rocker? I wouldn’t – you wouldn’t no one would….. get real!
Kanchelskis
First off, thanks for calling me a condescending dick. Insulting someone just detracts from your own argument and makes you look childish.
If you had read on (you wouldn’t believe the self control I needed to stop myself writing that in capitals) you would see that I said.
“Granted this doesn’t explain why no-one has come forward and said that they made an offer which was rejected, but just because we haven’t heard about anyone making an offer doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened!”
I’m sorry but it’s incredibly more naive to pretend to know for a “fact” that no-one with more than £250 has made an offer, are you seriously suggesting that things like this never go on behind closed doors? For all we know Kenwright could be insisting that anyone who wants to have an offer even get through the door must sign a confidentiality agreement to stop the story leaking to the press, to stop getting the supporters hopes up, to stop the complete murder that would happen if the parties couldn’t reach an agreement. I’m certain that there are a plethora of other reasons as to why business deals go on behind closed doors every single day and why both parties agree to keep them that way.
Ask yourself, who’s more naive, the person that pretends to know what goes on behind closed doors all the time or the person that admits that no-one outside those doors has a clue what’s going on behind them.
If the above seems condescending then that’s just tough, I’m not here to make friends, I’m just here to point out when someone’s clearly got it wrong, irrespective of what side of the fence they’re on.
And before anyone says ‘oh but look, it’s been confirmed that Everton are in talks with 3! potential buyers’ Well it doesn’t surprise me, first off I expect they’re in talks with interested parties on quite a few occasions per year, of course I don’t know that, but if the club is publicly up for sale and has a turnover of £75m-£80m per year… we’re bound to have interested parties wanting to talk, see the books and discuss possible purchase of the controlling stake in the club. It wouldn’t surprise me either that this was only ever released to the press when the board was under intense pressure from the fans, it’s happened before when the pressure was high and it succeeded in reducing that pressure.
friggin sad isn’t it?
I’ll be up watching the TV tomorrow night, but I do hope that Billy notices the discontent and does something about it, frigging pronto !
COYB