Business With Blain: Sliding Doors
Changing the people, setting standards and keeping Lukaku. How might Farhad Moshiri's time at Everton gone differently?
By JohnB
This time nine years ago, as 2015 ticked towards 2016, nobody had an inkling of what would happen in the coming February, and so there was much excitement in the media and among Everton fans when the club announced that British/Iranian billionaire, Farhad Moshiri, had reached an agreement to buy the club.
Not much was known about Moshiri. He had been involved in Arsenal, along with his business partner Alisher Usmanov, but had seemingly grown frustrated at his lack of influence in north London.
He wanted his own club, and to run it his way, and so he acquired just under 50% of the share value of Everton. That meant he didn’t have formal control, but it was clear to many that he had a Purchase Agreement in place to take total control in the future. However, it is doubtful if anyone expected that his formal ascension to majority shareholder was almost three years away.
In a sliding doors moment, and with the benefit of hindsight, the transformation of Everton and a hoped-for return to greatness started off on the wrong foot, and sadly many of Moshiri’s early failings persist to this day.
But, what are the key moments that Moshiri got wrong, and the ones that if he’d got right, could have made it all turn out much differently?
What was Farhad Moshiri’s biggest failing at Everton?
OUT WITH THE OLD…
In the guise of Alexander Ryazantsev, Moshiri immediately placed a representative on the Board, but he was outnumbered by the old school network that continued to include Chair Bill Kenwright, and Jon Woods, who would soon sell out to Moshiri without reference to Kenwright, resulting in the addition at Board level of corporate streetfighter Keith Harris, who assumed Woods’ Deputy Chair mantle.
Behind the scenes, Moshiri didn’t get control of the Board; he was seduced by the expert and well-honed persuasion skills of Kenwright. Harris, who was something of a threat to Kenwright, left the club in 2019, and a couple of years later was followed out the door by Ryazantsev, with neither having delivered on their primary objective to secure funding for the proposed new Everton Stadium.
Kenwright had previously maneuvered former Everton in the Community chief Denise Barrett-Baxendale into the role of CEO, and when he persuaded Moshiri to replace Ryazantsev with Grant Ingles as Finance Director and later added former player Graeme Sharp to the Board, the die was cast.
Kenwright had asserted control. Moshiri seemed to increasingly be an absent landlord, although he continued to interfere with the day-to-day running on the sporting side (specifically, impulsively hiring and firing managers and involving himself in transfer dealings) and would never really assert oversight authority until he himself joined the Board in June 2023, by which time it was too late. The club had meandered into financial difficulties and he was looking to sell — keeping it going was draining his personal wealth amid the impact of COVID-19 and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
SETTING THE TONE
In hindsight, the muddled thinking was obvious from the get-go.
Moshiri wanted a Director of Football in place. DoFs (often referred to as Sporting Directors) are now commonplace in the Premier League. But back in the summer of 2016, that wasn’t the case.
Steve Walsh was ultimately appointed as Director of Football. Moshiri had reportedly wanted Monchi, who had worked wonders at Sevilla, and Marcel Brands, then at PSV, but had been unable to convince either of them to make the move to Merseyside (a switch that Brands would, of course, ultimately make in 2018).
Walsh was a highly thought-of lead scout who had played a key role in Leicester City’s magnificent Premier League title win in 2015-16. It was Walsh who had scouted the likes of Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante.
But at Everton, Walsh swiftly set about demonstrating that as a great scouter of talent, he was not best suited to a role that required authority, systems management and political nous.
Walsh’s case was perhaps not helped by the fact that he was appointed over a month after Everton had confirmed Ronald Koeman as their new manager. Moshiri had dispensed with Roberto Martinez back in the spring, with the Spaniard having failed to get the best out of a talented squad that included Gerard Deulofeu, Ross Barkley, John Stones and Romelu Lukaku.
That initial transfer splurge in 2016 — albeit one that mainly utilised funds generated from the sale of Stones to Manchester City — was a warning sign of things to come in the early Moshiri years. Idrissa Gueye was a brilliant find, and can still be found excelling in Everton’s midfield today (albeit after a spell at Paris Saint-Germain), but big money was spent on Yannick Bolasie, Ashley Williams, while Enner Valencia was a late arrival on loan. Dominic Calvert-Lewin did come in, but that signing had more to do with then Under-21s coach David Unsworth than anybody else, with the striker seen as a development option for the academy.
DON’T LUK BACK IN ANGER
At the time of Moshiri’s takeover, Everton enjoyed the services of one of the Premier League’s best goal scorers in the form of Romelu Lukaku, and if Moshiri’s failure to get control of the Board was his most significant business mistake, then allowing Lukaku to leave compromised the sporting side disastrously.
Lukaku departed for Manchester United in July 2017 for a high fee, but he also took with him a guarantee of goals — in his last season at Goodison Park, he plundered 25 league goals; goals that papered over a multitude of cracks and propelled the Toffees into the Europa League. That seventh-place finish in 2016-17 will go down as the highest of the Moshiri era.
Everton have never replaced those goals, and in striving to do so, they have spent hundred of millions of pounds when the obvious thing to have done would have been to convince Lukaku by making him a financial offer that he simply could not refuse.
However, Kenwright’s old-school view of player wages and Moshiri’s odd views on Lukaku’s family contributed to an appalling inability to convince the player that the promised investment in the playing side of the club would happen in the right way.
Within weeks of Lukaku’s departure, Kenwright was resisting Moshiri’s desire to spend big on Gylfi Sigurdsson, but eventually the Chairman acquiesced.Everton paid up to £50million for the 27-year-old midfielder and offered him a salary more than Lukaku’s.
What if Everton had just fought that bit harder, stretched that much further in their budget — when the money was there to be spent, too — on keeping their star striker happy? And also, supporting him with the quality additions Lukaku craved.
A NEW HOME
Time was moving on, and as Moshiri became increasingly impulsive, Barrett-Baxendale had secured planning approval for a magnificent stadium, designed by Dan Meis, to be built on the Banks of the Royal Blue Mersey.
A stadium that would mostly be financed by Moshiri himself, or at least it would until Russia invaded Ukraine.
His weakness at getting control of the Board subsequently had a dramatic impact when Barrett-Baxendale’s slowly, slowly, softly, softly, approach to acquiring planning approval resulted in an application being submitted, and thus approval was granted minimally two years later than it might have been.
With his close links to Usmanov — his USM firm sponsored Everton’s training facility at Finch Farm, while MegaFon had their branding all over Goodison Park and were the lead sponsor for the women’s team — Moshiri’s access to fluid cash was inhibited almost immediately when Usmanov was sanctioned in early 2022 and would stimulate his increasingly, and apparently desperate, approach to securing funds to continue the stadium build.
The Everton Stadium is due to be formally handed over to the club this month. It is clear to see that had it been completed say for the start of 2022-23, the impact of sanctions on Moshiri, and therefore Everton, would have been significantly diluted. But that is something more decisive leadership and commitment could and should have been delivered.
CLOSE CALLS
Sadly, until the sanctions were announced, Moshiri continued to play fantasy football with a revolving door of manager changes at the club with some being good appointments, some being bad, and one, in particular being disastrous.
The appointment of Rafael Benitez as Everton manager — a decision made on Usmanov’s yacht while Director of Football Brands waited onshore in Monaco for a call to come and present his recommendations — stains in my view the memory and reputation of anyone at the club who allowed it to happen.
On the back of Carlo Ancelotti’s departure, the appointment of Benitez, and how some members of the Board embraced it, specifically the CEO Barrett-Baxendale, broke the back of the Everton supporters. From that moment onwards, the Board and the owner had no long-term future at the football club.
Benitez lasted barely six months, but during that time, Moshiri increasingly distanced himself and focussed on trying to find investment into the club — eventually, that search for investment would become a search for a buyer.
Brands was all but forced out. Everton made transfer dealings to appease Benitez, and then sacked him days later. A managerial candidate went on Sky Sports News to push his own credentials, and Everton slipped into their first relegation battle since the 1990s, but they eventually scraped to survival.
The Board remained inert, and with increasing fan activism because of an unproven allegation of an assault on Barret-Baxendale by a fan, and the Board being advised not to attend games at Goodison, the very public destruction of the Everton brand reputation was almost complete.
Many staunch Evertonians could not believe the club could sink any further, but sadly that was later proven not to be true. Nonetheless, Evertonians wanted the Board and the owner gone, the fans stayed loyal to the club itself and are credited with supporting the players and managers — Frank Lampard had to be replaced by Sean Dyche midway through 2022-23 — to help them avoid the ignominy of relegation.
Moshiri’s attempts to sell the club have also taken years off the lives of Evertonians; the thought that 777 Partners got so very close to acquiring the club still makes many Blues shudder.
A bullet dodged, a sliding doors moment, call it what you will. It was a close call. Too close.
START ANEW
Having reviewed the Moshiri years and highlighted some of the most impactful events here, it’s a credit to the robustness of the fanbase and the middle-ranking employees at the club that they have remained resolute. It is frankly amazing that the club, after an extremely painful journey, are now on the cusp of achieving Moshiri’s primary focus over the last five years.
“We need to complete the new stadium and still be in the Premier League when that happens.”
Moshiri will not benefit from the fruit of the labour. His days as the owner of this great football club are coming to a close. The sale to The Freidkin Group will soon be finalised, with Dan Friedkin and his family acquiring a club that, post sale, will have manageable debt, a completed and paid for stadium with a terrific oportunity to totally refresh the playing squad, created by the exit of out-of-contract players.
TFG genuinely could make Everton great again. It will not be easy, it will not happen overnight, but it can and should happen quicker than many Blues would dare to dream.
Some quite simple actions, but ones that require careful planning that should have already taken place, are necessary. They must demonstrate the ability and commitment to be decisive in decision-making and effective in communicating to key stakeholders, and specifically those whose support is not optional.
Evertonians throughout the world believe they are born, not manufactured. Regardless of whether they chose or inherited their allegiance, it is unwavering; embraced in the right way it is an unstoppable force for good, and equally the fanbase does not suffer fools, or being treated as such.
Moshiri might have failed, but perception can be changed quicker than fact.
As a life-long Evertonian, a match-going Blue of almost 60 years and a season ticket holder of 50 years, I look forward to hearing how the new owners will deliver on their aim to create timeless memories and inspire joy and purpose.
They should appoint you to the Board Mr. Blaine.