Everton lose £10m after Premier League decision as 777 Partners saga nears end

Everton will have their short-term cashflow issues eased following the conclusion of the Premier League on Sunday.

The Toffees wrapped up a tumultuous 2023/24 campaign, one where safety was assured despite an ongoing takeover saga and two separate points deductions, with a 2-1 loss at Arsenal on the final day of the season.

Good form in the final weeks of the season, where Everton won three of their final six games, saw them pull well clear of any relegation danger and Sean Dyche’s side finished the campaign in 15th place, two places better off than they were when they survived on the final day of the 2022/23 season.

With all the Premier League games completed on Sunday, the final make-up of the table is now known, with clubs to receive the merit payments due to them based upon their final standing made ‘soon after the final positions are known’ according to the Premier League.

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That money will land at clubs imminently but for Everton, the £18.6m that they will receive for finishing 15th will help the club’s cash flow position, with the Toffees having been reliant in recent months for working capital, with the group who wants to acquire the club from Farhad Moshiri, 777 Partners, having provided some £200m-plus in interest-bearing loans. The most recent of those loans landed earlier this month through a pre-agreed £8m payment.

However, while 777 are understood to have until the end of the month to find the capital required to meet the conditions for approval set out by the Premier League, it appears that any deal with the Miami-based firm seems implausible given the current crisis that has enveloped 777.

In recent weeks the firm has faced allegations of fraud in a US civil court; has seen an airline it owns fall into voluntary administration; has seen its main source of funding told to reduce its risk to 777 by US state regulators; has had its co-founders Josh Wander and Steven Pasko removed from the board; has called in restructuring experts; and has seen two of its clubs taken from its control by courts in Brazil and Belgium.

Even if the capital is somehow raised it seems hard to envisage a scenario where they are deemed fit and proper enough to pass the Premier League’s owners and directors test, with the above issues all coming to light after the conditional approval was given back in March.

The £18.6m, which is formed of merit payments that arrive from the domestic media rights and international media rights, comes at a time when the club is in need of continued financing for working capital, with Moshiri understood to be looking at alternatives to 777 Partners given the crisis that surrounds them and major question marks over their ability to complete a deal.

Had Everton not been hit by the combined eight-point deduction for two separate breaches of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules, then the club would have posted a 12th-placed finish. That would have earned them almost an extra £10m, with such a finish worth £28m.