Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas shares his thoughts on the figures at the heart of the club's latest set of accounts
Everton fans show their support from the stands during the Premier League match between Everton and Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images
Everton fans show their support from the stands during the Premier League match between Everton and Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images
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The big number may have been massaged by the sale of Everton Women’s team but the big picture from Everton’s finances is clear: The club has entered a new era.
To those of us watching David Moyes lead the club to the cusp of Europe with swashbuckling away wins and a demolition of Chelsea at the state-of-the-art new stadium, that might have been obvious for quite some time.
It is reassuring to see the progress currently visible on the pitch has been built on proper foundations though. There remains more to do on that front, but the latest set of accounts show serious work is being undertaken to make sense of a club that, for a long time, had not been particularly sensible.
The numbers at the heart of the 2024/25 club accounts, released on Tuesday afternoon, offer a snapshot of the club six months after the takeover of the Friedkin Group (TFG). The scarier numbers - the club would have recorded a loss of almost £58m had it not sold the women’s team (and Goodison Park with it) to the parent company operated by TFG chair Dan Friedkin - can largely be attributed to the hangover of the Farhad Moshiri regime.
There were happy moments during his ownership of the club but there is no escaping the reality that the final years were a mess of points deductions for spending breaches, desperate relegation battles, and boardroom crises as he sought an escape from the club while relying on support that was at times concerning and expensive to keep it going. Had Everton not secured the survival-clinching wins over Crystal Palace and Bournemouth it is not inconceivable that the Championship would have been the path to catastrophe.
That did not happen and those who were able to stave off those troubles deserve some credit, including Sean Dyche.
Dyche led the Blues to safety against Bournemouth and then navigated the horrendous points deductions that followed before proving unable to take the club forward in the immediate aftermath of the TFG takeover. The former manager and his staff were paid £4.1m for making way for the arrival of Moyes in January 2025, the accounts show.
With TFG in the boardroom and Moyes in the dugout, the groundwork was laid for the future that now feels so positive. While the Scot led the club away from a fourth successive relegation fight, behind the scenes, TFG started their overhaul of the finances.
The shareholder loans that were owed to Moshiri presented a financial and regulatory problem to Everton but their conversion into equity essentially wiped half a billion pounds of debt from the club’s balance sheet.
TFG repaid the various loans needed to fund the club, some of which were short-term, high interest drags on any potential to move forward and quickly dealt with the motley crew of parties that through their lending could exert influence. The debt has been restructured with the renowned JP Morgan Chase on a long-term, more favourable basis made possible by the credibility of TFG.
TFG also removed the threat of a third points deduction by resolving an outstanding dispute with the Premier League over the capitalisation of interest payments related to the new stadium. Another demon was, therefore, quickly slayed.
None of this is to say the job going forward is easy, nor that the hard work is complete. The extent of the club’s losses when the sale of the women’s team is removed remains staggering.
But the deal for Everton Women was a sign of savvy operating that created extra headroom for the club to comply with PSR last year and again this season. Other clubs had performed similar manoeuvres and the move was within the rules.
The Blues still have work to do in order to catch up with the club they would see as of a similar level - there is a significant gap to bridge to compete with the revenues of Aston Villa and Newcastle United, whose rises have included Champions League football.
Everton have already made progress on that front through the commercial deals pursued in line with the move to the new stadium. More opportunities will come as the club’s brand becomes more positive and trustworthy - even if this season does not end in Europe it is clearly a club moving forward.
For TFG the challenge will now turn to how it wants to build on the work to date and the culture it wants to encourage.
Important decisions over who the club wishes to deal with as it negotiates a new front of shirt sponsor, and how it wants to approach season-ticket pricing at a time when the cost of living is so problematic, lie on the immediate horizon.
An unlikely but possible clash between sister clubs Roma and Everton could still prove troublesome if the ‘structural solution’ TFG has for the event both qualify for the same competition does not satisfy UEFA.
But these problems are a world away from those facing the club before the takeover. The new accounts begin with a montage of the celebrations that marked the emotional departure from Goodison Park.
The move of the men's first team from the Grand Old Lady to the banks of the Mersey represented the end of an era on the pitch. The arrival of TFG six months earlier had already signalled the dawn of a new era off it.