Everton Takes Care Of Business On The Field As 777 Uncertainty Reigns

On the field, at least, Everton Football Club ended its season in the most competent manner. But off it, ownership issues and financial problems continue to blight the club and stifle any progress those on the sporting side are looking to make.

As the team achieved Premier League safety relatively early and relatively comfortably compared to recent years, the proposed takeover of the club from American private investment company 777 Partners continued to stall, and looks increasingly unlikely to happen at all.

Everton has not been helped by the lack of a decision either way from the Premier League. It is clear 777 have so far not met the requirements to be given the green light to take over the club, but neither have they been rejected, leaving the club in limbo.

Speaking on Tuesday morning to a parliamentary committee discussing the Football Governance Bill, Premier League CEO Richard Masters indicated that the long-running saga of the proposed takeover of Everton by 777 is still not near completion.

“The Premier League’s role in this is as regulator is to perform the test, it is not to decide who the current owner [Farhad Moshiri] wants to sell the club to—that is his decision,” said Masters.

“At the moment he wants to continue to have discussions with 777 about it.

“The Premier League has made very clear the conditions that have to be met by 777 if it wishes to become the owner of Everton and, at the moment, obviously, because the takeover hasn’t been confirmed… I’ll leave it to the committee to to make its own conclusions for where we are with that.”

The onus appears to be on current Everton owner Moshiri to move on to seeking another suitable buyer, rather than for the Premier League to give an outright no to 777. Something he is increasingly expected to do.

But as long as the Premier League believes Moshiri is still in discussions with 777, with whom Everton has already taken out numerous loans separate from any takeover, the league will not stand in the way of those discussions.

This indecision, uncertainty, and the questions around 777’s suitability to take over Everton—the answers to which make them appear less suitable as the weeks go by—is in stark contrast to the competence and organisation shown by Everton on the field in recent weeks.

When he joined the club as manager in January 2023, Sean Dyche knew what he was letting himself in for with regard to financial constraints and an inability to splash the cash in transfer windows, but perhaps he didn’t realise how deep Everton’s problems ran.

Despite this, a focus on controlling only what he and the players can control—such as training, match preparation, on-field performance, their bond with the fans, camaraderie, and other aspects on the sporting side of the club—has seen Everton finish with a comfortable cushion between themselves and the relegation zone.

Given they received an eventual eight-point deduction for breaching the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules, the subsequent financial restraints, and the small squad they had to work with, this is one of the biggest achievements in the Premier League this season.

It has been rounded off with an end-of-season run that would put Everton in the top five of the Premier League table on form, and without the points deduction, they would be 11th, ahead teams who have been much-lauded at various points this season—Brighton and Crystal Palace.

A 6-0 defeat for Everton at Chelsea sits in the middle of this good run of form and in many ways the team’s response to that game, as they held their hands up and made no excuses for the poor performance, sums up the resilience and mental strength they have shown in adversity this season.

Dyche commented on how every member of the squad and coaching staff looked to recover from that unacceptable defeat, and around that, the results have put them up there with the best teams in the league on form.

Last Saturday’s victory against Sheffield United was Everton’s fifth consecutive home win and meant they have accumulated 17 points in their last eight games.

The current run of five games unbeaten is their best since October 2022 and it is their biggest accumulation of points in a five game spell since December 2020 when Carlo Ancelotti was manager.

The 2-0 victory against local rivals and then still title-challengers Liverpool in the midst of this run added to the late-season positivity for Everton fans.

Despite all the negatives surrounding the club, there has been a sense of achievement, not least that Everton will play its final season at Goodison Park as a Premier League side.

But on the sidelines, away from the football, the problems persist, as the incompetent current ownership tries to sell the club to an investment group that itself doesn’t exude competence, to the point where they are not close to passing the Premier League’s owners test. A test that, looking at some other Premier League owners in recent years, must have low bar.

The fading of 777’s likelihood of taking over the club will be a blessing in disguise for Everton, but the direction in which they turn next to solve the ownership issue is not clear.

The only clarity at Everton in recent times has come from Dyche, his staff, the players, and the fans. At the end of the 2023/24 season, that was enough to offer a much-needed glimmer of hope for the future.