Skip to main content

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

Labels:

Comments

  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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site.  He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hull City's 'strange' loan

When football finance guru Kieran Maguire seems flashing lights in a club's loan deal, I become concerned.  He is the leading football finance expert in the UK. Hull City have borrowed £55m against their stadium and training ground yet they should get £30m from the Premier League before long.  What is going on? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cpwel48y51do
Post a Comment
Read more