There’s been something deeply questionable all along about the outfit called ‘777’, the very worst manifestation of the chancers now alighting on British football, picking over what they have seen as the carcass of Everton.
The club have become a car crash under the tenure of British Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri – one of the most inept proprietors to have darkened the doors of our game – and it was his desperate wish to cash out which brought the Miami-based investment fund and its chief executive, Josh Wander, to Goodison’s doorstep, in his trademark baseball cap.
Wander sometimes discusses himself in the third person, which is never a good sign. ‘Is there anyone in the world that’s been more serious about buying football clubs in history than Josh Wander?’ he said, a few months back, having already picked up six distressed sides, which have certainly not flourished under his ownership.
Wander said that he saw ‘his’ clubs becoming football’s equivalent of Tesco, selling fans every kind of financial product imaginable because it will have the team’s name plastered across it.
‘One day we’re not selling hot dogs and beers to our customers; we’re selling insurance or financial services or whatever,’ he said. Fans were so obsessive that ‘they want to be monetised,’ he observed.
Josh Wander and 777 Partners should have been nowhere near Goodison Park. It’s a measure of the dark place Everton are in that some supporters have seen them as saviours
![Farhad Moshiri's desperate wish to cash out from Goodison brought 777 circling like sharks](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84675483-13400337-image-m-5_1715278615528.jpg)
Farhad Moshiri’s desperate wish to cash out from Goodison brought 777 circling like sharks
![777 was accused last Friday of pledging £279million of cash which was not theirs, did not exist, or belonged to someone else - and Everton's name was dragged into the lawsuit](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84676593-13400337-image-a-18_1715279994317.jpg)
777 was accused last Friday of pledging £279million of cash which was not theirs, did not exist, or belonged to someone else – and Everton’s name was dragged into the lawsuit
It’s a measure of the very dark place Everton have found themselves in that some supporters have actually viewed Wander and his 777 business partner, Steven Pasko, as saviours – and that questioning their legitimacy has not been universally popular.
777 launched a Merseyside PR drive, with Wander doing some of the meeting and greeting. They found £200million to help Everton pay their creditors, and generally inserted themselves at the table of one of Britain’s grandest, proudest old clubs.
When 777 was brought before a New York courtroom last Friday, accused by two London-based asset management companies of pledging $350million (£279million) of cash which was either not theirs, did not exist, or had been promised to someone else, Everton’s name appeared within the 82-page legal petition.
The club was ‘the latest shiny object of Wander’s fraudulent scheme,’ the US District Court was told. Another financial entity had been set up to temporarily settle 777’s imminent financial obligations – like a game of ‘Whac-A-Mole,’ the papers said, ‘to avoid the entire scheme from being laid bare in public.’ Wander and Pasko were ‘operating a giant shell game at best, and an outright Ponzi scheme at worst.’
![Mail Sport's IAN HERBERT](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/21/84680503-13400337-image-a-25_1715285733998.jpg)
Mail Sport’s IAN HERBERT
777 have not commented on that civil case, for which they have not, as yet, filed a defence. The case has not been tested in that court of law. But senior British police officers told Mail Sport this week that the financial complexities behind an attempted 777 takeover at Everton demonstrated the huge challenge the Premier League faces in establishing which would-be owners should be allow into the sport.
‘It’s something that probably requires the forensic financial analysis to be outsourced to those with that level of detection and expertise,’ one officer said. ‘It seems like it is beyond any in-house team.’
Of course, Everton are not the first the only club which prospective foreign buyers have circled, looking for a foothold in the game and a slice of the £6.7billion four-year TV which the Premier League announced in December 2023. Those TV riches have brought hundreds looking for rich pickings.
The league spent six months considering whether 777 were fit to own Everton before imposing stringent takeover conditions in March, which forced the Americans to prove they had the money they claimed to have. The league – and Everton – are still waiting.
![777 have lingered at Goodison Park, swanning around the directors' box for over a year](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84675471-13400337-image-a-6_1715278698670.jpg)
777 have lingered at Goodison Park, swanning around the directors’ box for over a year
![Their ownership track record is abysmal. Genoa had to crowd-fund for a £4m training ground](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84675717-13400337-image-a-7_1715278777532.jpg)
Their ownership track record is abysmal. Genoa had to crowd-fund for a £4m training ground
![Wages have been going unpaid at Standard Liege, leading to a transfer ban on the Belgians](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84675791-13400337-image-a-8_1715278846211.jpg)
Wages have been going unpaid at Standard Liege, leading to a transfer ban on the Belgians
That Wander has entered the picture and been permitted to linger on the Everton scene for so long is testament to the fact that Moshiri’s attempts to sell the club have been just as disastrous as his attempts to run it – with two Premier League sanctions totalling an eight-point deduction for breaching spending rules this season.
Moshiri, who took control in 2016, burnt through £750million to no material effect before his Putin-supporting business associate Alisher Usmanov was sanctioned, after Russia invaded Ukraine, and the cash dried up.
When he decided to sell, some serious buyers expressed interest. They included a group fronted by the former Chelsea and Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon and the American businessman Maciek Kaminski, as well as MSP Sports Capital, whose Iranian-American chairman Jahm Najafi and chief executive Jeff Moorad attended a home game early last year.
But both consortiums left the scene. 777 appeared to be offering more money than the rest, acceding to Moshiri’s requests for up to £130m for his 94.1 per cent stake. That’s why they’ve been swanning around the directors’ box for over a year, entertaining the idea of being the keeper of the keys, when their dismal track record at other clubs suggests that they should be nowhere near the place.
There are unpaid wages at Standard Liege which have led to a transfer ban. The threat of a transfer ban at Brazilian club Vasco da Gama. Genoa having to crowd-fund for a £4million training ground.
The picture has unravelled fast for 777 in the past few weeks. An Australian budget airline the company owned, Bonza, collapsed into administration. Furious former owners at Standard Liege have demanded the seizure of millions of pounds of 777 assets in Belgium. And then came was the US civil court hearing.
Moshiri’s two days of meetings with 777 in London this week seem to have convinced him of what was evident all along – that they do not have the liquidity to buy Everton, let alone the intelligence to run the club. Moshiri will win no acclaim for sparing the club these owners. They should have been nowhere near Goodison in the first place.
Some of those original prospective buyers have now re-entered the picture. MSP, which has lent money to fund the club’s new Bramley-Moore Dock stadium, is looking at its options and exploring a takeover. Local Merseyside businessmen George Downing and Andy Bell, also creditors, are thought to maintain an interest in ownership, too.
![Bonza Airlines has collapsed into administration under 777 Partners' ownership](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84676487-13400337-image-a-16_1715279852104.jpg)
Bonza Airlines has collapsed into administration under 777 Partners’ ownership
![Everton have had eight points deducted across two sanctions for breaching spending rules](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84675985-13400337-image-a-9_1715278959581.jpg)
Everton have had eight points deducted across two sanctions for breaching spending rules
![This historic club could go into administration with Moshiri no longer putting money in](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84676005-13400337-image-a-10_1715279072581.jpg)
This historic club could go into administration with Moshiri no longer putting money in
But it is possible that Everton – in debt to the tune of £650million, lacking access to capital and unable to repay creditors, with Moshiri no longer willing or able to put cash in – will be insolvent and enter financial administration before any such takeover takes place.
That does not seem imminent. There is thought to be enough cash flow to see the club through to the end of the season. But a new owner who bought the club out of administration would not be saddled with its current heavy levels of debt, because a financial settlement would have been reached with creditors by the administrators.
‘Sadly, I think administration is increasingly likely,’ said leading Everton financial analyst The Esk. ‘There is a massive human cost to going into administration. People would lose their jobs and creditors would lose money. But from a business point of view, any new owner buying the club out of administration would reduce the money they spend on the club and take on a reduced debt.
‘The fault lies with Moshiri and that he has entertained 777 in the first instance. It would not take much to understand that they would struggle to find the money.’
The last Premier League club to enter administration were Portsmouth, 14 years ago, and were Everton to follow them down that path, they – like Pompey – would face a nine-point deduction. That would be imposed this season, if administration occurred that soon, or next season if it occurred between now and the 2024/25 campaign – which is more likely.
So, the flip side to the benefits of reduced financial outlay for a new buyer would be the prospect of being rooted to the bottom of the table at the start of the new campaign. Some of the prospective buyers are creditors. Much of a £158million loan to Everton which must be paid at the end of the season is due to MSP.
The prospects of 777 recovering their loans from administrators are thought to be slim. ‘They rank as the least senior of the secured creditors,’ said The Esk.
In one sense, a very positive future is visible to Everton. The club’s new state-of-the art stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, is blessed with a setting, on the banks of the Mersey, which marks it out from all other new stadiums of the Premier League era.
![Moshiri will win no acclaim for sparing the club of 777 Partners - their unsuitability has been evident all along](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84676019-13400337-image-a-11_1715279158116.jpg)
Moshiri will win no acclaim for sparing the club of 777 Partners – their unsuitability has been evident all along
![Everton have dodged a bullet - there will be none of Wander's Tescofication or funny money](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/09/19/84676191-13400337-image-a-12_1715279372232.jpg)
Everton have dodged a bullet – there will be none of Wander’s Tescofication or funny money
The breathtaking view from the steep-sided stands – created with a far steeper gradient, or ‘rake’, than Arsenal’s Emirates or West Ham’s London Stadium – is designed to create an atmosphere with all the intensity of Goodison under lights.
Typical, say Everton fans, that a crisis like this should materialise, just when the prospect of a long-awaited new home materialises. One of the club’s greatest teams was stopped in its prime by the outbreak of the Second World War. Another secured qualification for the European Cup in 1985 but never played in it because the Heysel Disaster brought a five-year ban from continental competition.
There was no comment yesterday from 777, whose swish website declares their commitment to ‘unlocking value where others can’t, applying our capital and operationally intensive approach, to identify opportunities that create long term value.’
Everton have dodged a bullet. The Miami investor in his baseball cap will not get his hands on the club. There will be none of his funny money and no Tescofication of Everton.
But after a season from hell, the last home game of the campaign, against Sheffield United, on Saturday will take place in a mood of deep uncertainty and grim resignation to the fact that things may get a lot worse before they get better.