Everton are preparing to wave goodbye to Goodison Park as they move into their new home on the Bramley-Moore Docks.
Everton simply had to move on from Goodison Park as it was holding them back from a financial perspective.
Bramley-Moore Dock stadium will be able to generate an extra £40m-a-year in revenue, with an additional 13,000 fans able to attend, plus greater commercial opportunities.
Everton’s naming rights deal could bank £10m-a-year, so quite clearly, the move will be transformative for the club’s finances.
But, with all that said, the Friedkin Group are still planning to put Goodison to good use, with the Women’s team potentially occupying it as their new home.
To get the lowdown on what that may mean from a financial perspective, we spoke exclusively to TBR’s finance and governance journalist Adam Williams, who provided an insightful look into Dan Friedkin’s masterplan.
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images
The Friedkin Group’s masterplan for Goodison Park
Finance expert Adam Williams has revealed how the Friedkin Group could make Everton Women’s a profitable venture with the help of Goodison Park.
“At the moment and probably for some time yet, the women’s team runs at a loss, as is obviously the case with the men’s team too,” Williams explained.
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“It is subsidised by the parent company, who underwrite the losses. Unlike the men’s team, however, there isn’t a limit on how much money the owners can put in under the terms of PSR.
“So while the investment in the women’s team is exempt from PSR, any turnover it makes goes back into the profit-and-loss account, which is ultimately what PSR for the men’s team is based on.
“So, yes, in theory, if the women’s team are based at Goodison and it proves a big success, as I suspect it would, then it could fortify the club’s PSR position.
“However, I’d be very surprised if the funds weren’t reinvested in the women’s team itself and concentrated on eventually turning that arm of the business into a profitable venture.
“But with a new revenue-based PSR system likely to be introduced the season after next, I think it can benefit both parts of the club in that it will carve out more PSR headroom – which is basically a legal fiction – for the men’s side while simultaneously generating more real cash for the women’s team.”
Friedkin Group have ambitious plans for Everton
The Friedkin’s are incredibly ambitious people, so it’s hardly surprising to see these plans surfacing in the media over the last few weeks.
Everton News spoke to Roma expert Andrea Di Carlo in December and he explained just how driven the American investors are.
“But the Friedkins remain a very ambitious group, they want to excel in every field in which they invest, from cinema to sports, let alone in the most fascinating championship in the world like the Premier League,” Di Carlo told the site.
“It will take some time but soon we will understand how their football galaxy (Roma, Everton and Cannes) will have the opportunity to develop.”
Less than four months into their reign on Merseyside, we are already seeing exactly what Di Carlo predicted.