Business With Blain: Journey Of A Lifetime
There is hope Dan Friedkin can bring the good times back to Goodison Park.
By JohnB
It is less than three weeks since Everton Football Club announced that the sale and purchase agreement between 777 Partners and Farhad Moshiri’s Blue Heaven Holdings had expired.
Having failed to make best use of their period of exclusivity, the field was now wide open for other interested parties to succeed 777 by coming out of the shadows, putting their best foot forward, and acquiring the Grand Old Team of English Football.
After a flurry of legacy media-driven rumours, scoops and exclusives, the field of play settled down with some ‘bidders’ privately conceding defeat and by activity alone, the number of interested parties seemed to suggest imminent firesales of players were not going to happen, and Everton were, after all, in sufficient demand for owner Farhad Moshiri to have the luxury of a competitive process.
Within two weeks, it was being reported that Moshiri was about to announce a bidder had entered a period of exclusivity and that the ‘successful’ bidder was The Friedkin Group, a business led by Californian-born billionaire Dan Friedkin.
At the time of writing, that announcement has not yet happened, but it is understood from those closest to the deal that an agreement is being documented and an announcement will be made at the right time.
The Friedkin Group is a privately held consortium of companies and businesses made in the image of its Chairman and CEO Friedkin, and his family. Founded more than 50 years ago, the group now encompasses one of the largest independently held Toyota distributors in the world, luxury resorts, entertainment, hospitality and the sporting and adventure industries.
The group is thought to have annual revenues of more than £10billion, operates in 12 countries and its website proudly proclaims it is “… Unified by a shared mission: to inspire best-in-class experiences that go beyond the ordinary…”, something that may sit well with Evertonians, who through Nil Status Nisi Optimum, proclaim “Only the Best is Good Enough”.
Dan Friedkin is a passionate leader, and is also President of Serie A club Roma, which he acquired in 2020 for almost £500million.
He has also produced over a dozen films, including the Oscar-nominated and critically acclaimed Killers of the Flower Moon, while he won an award at the Cannes Film Festival and somehow found the time to fly a Spitfire in the film Dunkirk, winning a Taurus Stunt Award for Best Speciality Stunt.
Everton and Moshiri appear to have had a narrow escape when it comes to the potential owners nobody really wanted, and it now appears a deal is close with an owner Evertonians would wholeheartedly embrace, and not simply because he (and indeed his group) are not 777.
Friedkin is already a very wealthy and successful man who has excelled across multiple industries by setting clear but ambitious targets, leading from the front and being decisive in his decision-making.
If he finalises his agreement with Moshiri, only the Premier League Owners and Directors’ Test would stand between him and starting the journey of a lifetime as the owner of Everton Football Club.
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Happier times seem to be getting closer. Let's hope Friedkin can deliver as he has across his other businesses.
Lets hope it gets done and the quicker the better
Evertons on the up and up !!