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I bought Everton in 1999 and they have same issues - many will disagree with me on Farhad Moshiri
Former Everton co-owner Paul Gregg has delivered a blunt message to current majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri over 777 Partners’ faltering takeover bid while offering a cryptic hint over a big name for a potential concert at the club’s new stadium next summer.
Gregg matched Bill Kenwright’s £7.5million investment when the late Everton chairman took control of the club from Peter Johnson in 1999 and was on the board until 2006 when he sold his stake to Robert Earl. The entertainment impresario, who built Apollo Leisure Group into the UK’s biggest theatre owner and largest independent family run cinema chain in the country, expressed his thoughts on Everton’s present ownership issues when speaking on a special edition of the Royal Blue podcast.
Gregg told the ECHO: “When Farhad Moshiri came in, Bill (Kenwright) must have benefitted financially because he was a shareholder. The Ukraine war hasn’t helped because it stopped the Russian money flowing in and I think all those things have just added to the position where they are today.
“I think actually if Moshiri held his breath and changed his management views on the club then I think maybe the club could move forward, even in an interim basis. I think he’s got to say goodbye to 777.
“The fans don’t want them, they’re being sued across the world for various things so the bad news is they can’t deliver the money. The answer is ‘goodbye,’ I can’t see how he’s got any other conversation with that.”
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Gregg was a leading advocate of Everton’s previous plans to relocate to the Mersey waterfront with the King’s Dock project which could have seen the Blues playing in a 55,000 capacity stadium with retractable roof and pitch on the site of the arena. However, while the failure of that scheme remains his biggest regret from his time at the club and many of the issues they faced two decades ago are still there, he reckons their future home being built at Bramley-Moore Dock can turn their fortunes around.
Gregg said: “Maybe it’s not very fair to talk about Bill because he’s passed away but the point is, when you look at the club, what’s changed in 20 years? There are still the same problems from when we bought the bloody club!
“It was tight on cash back then and look where it is today. It’s several hundred million, you’re talking about half a billion pounds for somebody to sort it out now.
“The point is, when you go to the new stadium and look around you just see an amazing opportunity. I think with a little bit of simple management changes and a deep breath, Everton could be a new brand again.”
The Scarborough-born businessman added: “Maybe people won’t agree with me but I think the current owner has had a tough time. He did a deal in what he thought were the best interests of the club, he committed to build a stadium which is a £700million project, in a way he must be as sick as every Evertonian in that they haven’t delivered the money, they’ve let him down, he’s let the fans down and he’s let himself down and I’m sure he feels really fed up.
“If you read all the reports, effectively 777 can’t deliver and that’s sad. How quickly they’ll find another buyer, I don’t know.
“With the new stadium completed and the opportunity to run the club for the next few years, I think Everton have got a great chance to rebuild itself. I think there are one or two brands who you can talk to who would be really interested and it would be great if Chang came back - I think they would be a great partner again for Everton.”
Although Everton’s first team aren’t due to play their first competitive game at their new stadium until the start of the 2025/26 season, construction on the site by the banks of the Mersey is scheduled to be complete by the end of the calendar year and Gregg reckons the venue could start to be a potential money-maker before the football starts. As the man who brought Michael Jackson to Merseyside when the pop superstar played in front of a 125,000 crowd at Aintree in 1988, Gregg has aspirations to get involved himself by trying to get an unnamed iconic music figure on board.
He said: “The stadium is supposedly ready by Christmas but the current management have told us that they don’t really want to open the stadium until the first game of the season the following year in 2025. My view is that next summer is when the stadium should open with live entertainment and there should be a series of concerts there next summer.
“We should establish that this is a total sports and entertainment destination. We’ve talked to somebody who will be very special to Liverpool to come next year but we haven’t got it approved yet.’
“I think the other good news is the space outside the stadium. The concourse can accommodate 25,000 people for a concert so you could also use that for concerts next summer or put Christmas events there, you could run that whole space outside the stadium.”
Gregg acknowledged that it’s the people of the institution that David Moyes dubbed ‘The People’s Club’ who he recalls mostly fondly from his time on Merseyside and he believes it is those loyal but long-suffering supporters who have got them through their recent struggles. Reflecting on his time at Everton while looking to the future, the 83-year-old said: “I enjoyed it. It was a challenge, we enjoyed doing the King’s Dock stadium scheme and all the work that went into that was good.
“I think learning about what football fans really want was important and I think learning what Evertonians believe and what they want. They’ve had a rough ride.
“You know the Premier League made a statement when they were fighting the points (deduction) that they were a “small club.” I don’t think they realised that it’s a massive club, a massive fanbase.
“I think people just need to understand what the brand is, what Evertonians mean, what they are, I think with a little bit of work, they could really become very strong again. Given Sean Dyche’s position, if he’s there next year, why couldn’t they be in the top 10?”
