Everton are almost a full 12 months on from The Friedkin Group being handed the keys to the club.
The stark contrast over the last year on Merseyside has been there for all to see, with Everton finally looking like a club with a bright future ahead of them.
Bringing back David Moyes was the first major development at Everton under The Friedkin Group and that is a decision which has brought stability back to the club.
Moyes was delighted with the financial backing from the Friedkins over the summer, with the Toffees looking to challenge for those European spots.
However, it could have been so different for Everton after the likes of John Textor made his own move to beat the Friedkins to the Toffees.
The latest rumours emerging about the American businessman will have Everton fans grateful he did not land the winning bid on Merseyside.
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Everton dodge John Textor bullet by landing The Friedkin Group
Having lost out to the current owners, Textor has asked for a meeting with the Friedkins to discuss their battle in the board room to land Everton.
The Lyon owner has now been accused of adjusting transfer fees between his multi-club set-up and Nottingham Forest with Evangelos Marinakis.
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Speaking to Everton News, finance expert Adam Williams has shared his thoughts on how fortunate the Blues have been to land the Friedkins instead of the controversial Textor.
“If you look at the types of investor who have come relatively close to buying into Everton, the club have been quite serendipitous with how it has actually panned out,” Williams told Everton News.
New SCR rules state that the overall squad costs from the 2026-27 campaign will have to be limited to 85% of a club’s revenue, although teams competing in Europe will have to adhere to UEFA’s maximum of 70%. Squad costs comprise player and manager wages, transfer fees and agents’ fees 💷
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Everton are now set to benefit from the SCR vote, which the Friedkins voted in favour of just a matter of weeks ago.
“Make no mistake, The Friedkin Group are ultimately in it for a financial return on investment, but I’d suggest it looks like a longer-term project with more of a focus on success on the pitch than it would have been under a private equity firm like, say, MSP Sports Capital, who were close to buying the club a couple of years ago.
“Then there was 777 Partners, who had shaken hands on a deal with Moshiri but they weren’t able to get it over the line for a variety of reasons, though the foremost was that they were unable to satisfy the Premier League’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test. Josh Wander, the co-founder of 777 Partners, has now been indicted for allegedly defrauding investors. The collapse of 777 Partners has been a very, very messy affair. Clearly, they weren’t the right kind of owners for Everton on several levels.
“With Textor, he’s a bombastic character and has a ‘move fast and break things’ approach to football club ownership. On the pitch, he’s had a lot of success in Brazil, but less in France. Things aren’t going well there. French football in general is in crisis financially, but the problems at Lyon are disproportionate to the wider problems with the Ligue TV deal.”
Everton benefitting from post-Farhad Moshiri stability
Since handing over the keys to the Friedkins, Farhad Moshiri has been spotted at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on a number of occasions.
The former Everton owner certainly had his critics, but he built the club a stunning new home and found the right owners to hand it over to.
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Textor has become a real controversial figure across the game, with the American desperate to buy into another English club.
Dan Friedkin still has not showed his face on Merseyside, with the American working in the background, but that is something which Williams does not feel Textor would have offered.
“Everton desperately needed stability post-Moshiri with the move to the new stadium. Maybe everyone is wrong about Textor and he is a visionary football club owner whose style will be vindicated in a few years time, I don’t know, but he has been perpetually fighting fires for the last year or so,” Williams added.
“It’s really quite something, the rate at which he has made headlines – most of them negative – in the usually pretty grey world of football finance. Again, he wasn’t the right fit.”
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