At Everton's annual general meeting in January 2019, the owner, Farhad Moshiri, made a dramatic promise.
Speaking about the club's ambition to build a 52,888-seat stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, the club's majority shareholder pledged: "I'll throw as much money as needed. Private markets will provide £350m, naming rights will give us some more and we will maybe have an equity gap of £100m." He added: "[This club] is sufficiently robust to see the project through. It is no luxury; we have to get it done. If we want to have a big club we need a modern stadium and we will get it".
About 15 months ago, in January 2023, Moshiri was still reading from much the same script. He told Everton's Fan Advisory Board: "The club is not for sale, but I have been talking to top investors of real quality to bridge a gap on the stadium. I can do it myself; the reason I want to do it is to bring top sport investors into Everton, for some of the reasons the fans want improvement: more talent. We are close to having a deal done." However, those studying the club's operations at that point would have spotted the clues that have slowly led to Everton now calling in a leading firm of restructuring and insolvency advisers to help with their huge debts.
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