Everton have already seen a slight upturn in form ever since The Friedkin Group took over the club in December 2024 – but the financial battle on their hands has become apparent.
The Friedkin Group began talks with then-Everton owner Farhad Moshiri in July 2024 to take over on Merseyside, and a 94.1 percent takeover was agreed just two months later to signal a new era.
The move to the Hill Dickinson Stadium, money being spent horribly on the playing squad in years gone by and an eight-point deduction in the 2023-24 campaign were all telling signs that Everton needed new owners.
And although The Friedkin Group have somewhat recovered the poor spell Everton had under Moshiri, GRV Media’s Head of Football Finance Governance Content, Adam Williams, has shown that there is a long way to go for fiscal freedom.
Farhad Moshiri looks on as the Everton owner in the Merseyside Derby.
Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
Everton’s recent dealings have begun to turn the financial tsunami that The Friedkin Group took on
Speaking to Everton News, Adam Williams made reference to CIES Football Observatory’s recent findings in terms of how much value clubs have either lost or won on players since 2021.
And, with Everton falling £38million in the red based on their data, it shows an insight to their problems – even though The Friedkin Group have done well to mop that up in recent weeks.
He said: “You have to take this kind of data with a pinch of salt because they are trying to approach what is fundamentally a subjective metric – player value – from a scientific perspective.
“That said, it is a really good entry point into the numbers, and they clearly don’t make good reading for Everton. It is a problem that Dan Friedkin has inherited from the previous regime, where significant resources were invested in what you might call ‘win-now’ players, whose resale value was only ever going to nosedive if they didn’t live up to their potential. Most of those gambles didn’t pay off.
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“And because the investment didn’t generate a return on investment on or off the pitch in the form of qualifying for Europe, which they were budgeting for, that left them with PSR issues. At one point, their wage bill and transfer amortisation was over 150 per cent of revenue, and the operating losses were running at over £100m annually.
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“Going forward, the new regime recognise the value of player trading. Traditionally, football clubs had three revenue streams – commercial, matchday and media. But the last few seasons have shown that player trading is now effectively the fourth . The Friedkin Group have got into a bit of trouble with UEFA’s financial with Roma, so they will know better than most the need to generate chunky player sale profits consistently.
“If you look at the profile of player they have signed since the takeover, it’s clearly trending younger. You’d say that a few of those – Tyler Dibling, Thierno Barry, Carlos Alcaraz – have probably appreciated in value already. In Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, they got a player approaching his peak years for a relatively modest fee. So it’s about balancing the win-now players and the ones who might need a bit of refining but who come with a lot of upside.”
Time will tell if Everton will make a return on this summer’s investments, but they appear to be heading in the right direction.
Everton will need to stray away from their competition to avoid more financial punishments
The CIES Football Observatory has found that, since 2021, Everton have lost £38million in player value over a five-year period.
Of current Premier League clubs, only Arsenal, Wolves, Leeds, West Ham and Manchester United have fared worse in recent years, with the latter signing the likes of Andre Onana, Antony and Rasmus Hojlund, as well as depreciating assets such as Casemiro.
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Three of those are in a relegation battle, Manchester United are nowhere near where they used to be, and Arsenal have only really turned the tide over the past three years.
The other clubs below Everton are Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester City – who have found an immediate return to the Premier League a struggle this season.
Barring Arsenal, it’s a cohort of teams that are on a downward spiral in that period, and The Friedkin Group will want to stray away from that if they are to move away from financial punishments once again.
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