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Questions raised about Everton ownership

Everton's ownership and the alleged involvement of Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov will be scrutinised in a two part BBC Panorama special to be broadcast tomorrow and on Monday. The BBC has obtained documents relating to Usmanov's purchase of a 14.58 per cent stake in Arsenal in 2007 through the Red & White investment vehicle that he jointly owned with Farhad Moshiri, who sold up to his business partner last year to facilitate his 49.9 per cent purchase of Everton.

It is understood that the programme will claim that the documents show that Moshiri's initial Arsenal stake was a gift from Usmanov, leading to the suggestion that the billionaire from Uzbekistan was behind the Iranian's purchase of Everton as he was the original source of the funds.

Everton and a spokesman for Usmanov deny that he has any involvement at Goodison, which would be a breach of Premier League rules that state that any shareholder with a 10 per cent stake in one club cannot buy into another. The Premier League conducted a due diligence process before signing off Moshiri's Everton purchase and is confident that he used his own money.

There has been speculation for some time that Usmanov would ultimately join Moshiri at Everton as he has no influence at Arsenal and the pair have a number of joint investments. These rumours gained momentum after Usmanov's company, USM holdings, announced a sponsorship deal for the club's training ground in January.

David Conn has now produced a much more detailed account of investigations into the relationship between Moshiri and Usmanov. However, the gist of his argument that appears to be that while league rules cover one person owning a share in two clubs, they do not cover the situation where two business associates have a close relationship. In other words, one could infer that no existing rules have been broken: Leaked files

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  1. Skeptical4 November 2017 at 08:50

    So what are you,alleging? A gift is a gift ! are saying that it was given
    To purchase ,Everton for Usmanov ? or the gift was illegal??. Please qualify! . Due diligence ( fire smoke Arsenals chiefs briefings ) 😈.
    If the BBC was Lilly White I would take notice but it is well known
    who influences the Bent Broadcasting Corporation.

    ReplyDelete

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