Evertonian golfer Tommy Fleetwood with Dan Friedkin and son Ryan at St Andrews earlier this month
Evertonian golfer Tommy Fleetwood with Dan Friedkin and son Ryan at St Andrews earlier this month
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Evertonians know you can only truly love one football club and so it proved to be the case for Dan Friedkin.
It was the late, great Howard Kendall, the club’s most successful manager, who in his 2013 autobiography titled Love Affairs & Marriage: My Life in Football recalled quitting Maine Road in November 1990 to return to Goodison Park for the second of his three spells as manager and declared: “When you talk about Manchester City you talk about a love affair, but when you talk about Everton you are talking about a marriage.”
However, when it came to The Friedkin Group, Roma was their first love and in truth. While they paid all the bills and dutifully carried out all the mundane but important things to put the Blues on a surer financial footing, there was never any romance.
Debonair Dan, an accomplished pilot, did his best impression of Tom Cruise in Top Gun to personally fly both former Everton striker Romelu Lukaku and coach Jose Mourinho into the Eternal City when they signed for the Serie A side but it seems there were no directions for Liverpool in the cockpit as he never made it to either Goodison Park or Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Ex-Liverpool star accuses club of unfair treatment - 'I was much better than Raheem Sterling'
After the chaos of Farhad Moshiri’s turbulent tenure, churning through eight managers in as many years, suffering a brace of points deductions for financial breaches under a billionaire accountant and coming within a single Abdoulaye Doucoure goal of a first relegation in 72 years after posting the lowest equivalent points total in the club’s history, Blues were hoping for a Cinderella Story under the Texan Tycoon.
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They got one, but only if you’re thinking of Cinders BEFORE she went to the ball, in that her Italian sibling in the football family got all the attention while she was ignored. At Roma, Dan Friedkin was pictured in the stands alongside son Ryan with the pair even riding around the streets of the Italian capital in 2022 in an open top bus after the team won the UEFA Europa Conference League and since then, he has been photographed greeting coaches plus players on various visits to Centro Sportivo Fulvio Bernardini, their training ground.
This time last year, the 61-year-old, who is an avid golfer, who built the Congaree course in South Carolina and owns Diamond Creek Golf Club in North Carolina, was making what has become an annual pilgrimage to the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship but despite being on the greens the day before Everton’s home game with Crystal Palace – at which Jack Grealish would dramatically net the first stoppage time winner at Hill Dickinson Stadium – he instead flew straight out to Rome for the European Football Clubs General Assembly, where he is one of nine executive committee members.
In October 2026, the meeting came before the golf and with Friedkin said to have puffed out his chest when he heard Roma mentioned as Corriere dello Sport report him as purring to delegates: “Between the stadium and first place, it’s truly a great moment for us.” (a reference to a new billion-pound home getting the green light to be constructed and the team being top of the table). However, after making it to St Andrews and posing for a picture with Evertonian Tommy Fleetwood, the Friedkins received pelter from the fanbase over their stay-away policy.
While TFG had a four-year head start with Roma compared to Everton, having purchased them from fellow American James Pallotta on August 6, 2020, the fact that both clubs are of a similar size with comparable aspirations ultimately proved to be the sticking point. The ECHO understands that the Friedkins were initially hopeful of engineering a workaround if each of them qualified for European competition, but ultimately they were thwarted in this regard.
This dilemma, combined with a lack of appetite to embrace Evertonian matters compelled them to sell up. The Blues collapsed from being just three points off a Champions League place following the 3-0 victory over Chelsea on March 21 to finishing 13th but could they have avoided their collapse during the run-in if they’d been given some timely reinforcements in January?
You could argue that manager David Moyes was let down in that respect, especially in the lengthy pursuit of a specialist right-back with number one target Guela Doue ended up joining Bayer Leverkusen on September 1 for less than £26million, four days after Brentford shelled out £35million plus add ons for a full-back when snapping up El Hadji Malick Diouf from relegated West Ham United.
An issue that had been brewing for several months came to a head at some point in August, as all of a sudden, those within the game were being told Everton would need to sell before they bought, hence Nottingham Forest’s late interest in Harrison Armstrong and TFG’s initial willingness to cash in on the home-grown hero and only Scouser in the squad, before finally seeing sense when supporters threatened to riot.
That reluctance to open their hearts to the Blues has perplexed both supporters and manager David Moyes alike. However, if there’s one thing that the Glaswegian gaffer and the Friedkins can agree upon, it’s that the club is now an attractive proposition that should be able to entice a much better calibre of buyer pool than when Moshiri was dealing with an assortment of tyre kickers.
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Dixie Dean Memorial Award evening to salute Johnny Morrissey
The 35th Dixie Dean Memorial Award evening will unfold in Goodison Park’s main stand Alex Young Suite on Friday October 30 (7.30-11pm) as the Everton FC Heritage Society invites fans to salute the latest recipient of this most prestigious trophy, two-times league title winner Johnny Morrissey.
The former Blues’ winger missed just one of the 42 league games during that iconic 1969/70 championship season that regularly featured over half a team of Merseysiders, including Brian Labone, Colin Harvey, Joe Royle, Tommy Wright and Alan Whittle.
Former Everton star Johnny Morrissey is receiving the Dixie Dean Memorial Award
Former Everton star Johnny Morrissey is receiving the Dixie Dean Memorial Award
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Once again, the event will enable supporters to focus on the most famous royal blue hero of all time, the immortal William Ralph Dean, while reflecting on the importance of local stars in any successful team.
The Dean gathering always stirs EFC spirits, bringing fans and ex-stars together to demonstrate how special it is to be a True Blue. Peter Reid and Ronny Goodlass will be among the special guests paying tribute to Morrissey at the Dean evening.
Tickets are £22:38. These must be purchased in advance via the Eventbrite web link here.
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