Everton fan group urges Moshiri and Premier League to drop 777 takeover

The Everton Fan Advisory Board is the latest body to lend its voice to the calls for 777 takeover to be cancelled

Everton’s most influential fan group has told Farhad Moshiri to allow new potential bidders to come forward as the 777 Partners takeover appears doomed.
Amid fears the protracted sale is finally on the brink of collapsing, Everton Fan Advisory Board joined minority shareholders in demanding an end to the saga.
Several sources confirm Moshiri held face-to-face meetings with 777 executives in London this week to seek clarity this week as lawsuits pile up against the Miami firm.  There is broad agreement among those close to talks that a resolution is required by the end of the season.
However, amid growing concern 777 remains fit to clear various outstanding bills outlined in conditions set by the Premier League, the fan board, which was launched to give greater supporter say after the 2021 Super League furore, is demanding alternatives.
In a message requesting urgent meetings with the club, the advisory group said: “This ongoing confusion and lack of transparency cannot continue. Each party must recognise the role it is playing in sullying the reputation of one of the most storied clubs in English football history and appreciate that all the rumour and speculation is causing extremely high levels of anxiety and concern to the club’s greatest assets: their fans.”
Previous direct correspondence with Moshiri, 777 and other interested parties had failed to answer concerns, the group added. In the fan board’s new demands, Moshiri was told he must “recognise that now is the time for other bidders to be offered the opportunity to acquire Everton Football Club” and  777 should “recognise that your inability to bring the funding necessary to consummate the original deal and the growing reputational damage you are incurring with lawsuit after lawsuit makes you unsuitable owners of EFC”.
The Premier League, meanwhile, should “recognise that it is time for you to live up to your responsibilities (as defined by the Owners and Directors Test in your own rule book) by rejecting 777 Partners in order to allow discussions with more suitable owners of our great club.”Everton Shareholders’ Association had added on Tuesday that the “powers-that-be are being disrespectful” and must pull the plug on the proposed deal.
Fewer than five per cent of the club is owned independently of Moshiri’s Blue Heaven Holdings and the estate of the late Bill Kenwright. However, the association, founded in 1938, still carries some club influence as a “watchdog”, with fan supervision of transactions and sales of shares. “We are the oldest Shareholders’ Association in the world and are dismayed by the lack of respect being shown to our football club by the largest shareholder Farhad Moshiri, and the Premier League during what seems a never-ending change of ownership process,” the group said, breaking its silence on a deal first agreed last September.
“In the absence of the Premier League making a timely decision we insist that the Everton Board, and Farhad Moshiri in particular, stop this damaging process now and recognise that 777 Partners are not at this time fit-and-proper prospective owners of Everton Football Club.”
Frustration is mounting internally, however, that the situation still remains unresolved after a fraught fortnight of legal complaints faced by 777. On Monday former owners at 777’s Belgian club Standard de Liège demanded the seizure of millions of pounds of assets in the country. Two new claims were tabled just days after one of the investment firm’s airlines collapsed and another major lawsuit was launched in New York.
Last week, 777 Partners made a last-minute payment of around £16 million towards working capital at the Premier League side, to ease alarm shortly after one of its airlines Bonza abruptly ceased flying.