‘They’ve done a Chelsea’ – Stefan Borson drops verdict after Everton deal agreed
Everton appear to have “done a Chelsea” after an update has emerged surrounding their women’s team.
Chelsea sold their women’s team to owners BlueCo last summer for around £200million, helping them turn their previous £90million loss for 2022-23 into a £128million profit for 2023-24.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa completed the last-ditch sale of their women’s team earlier this summer, helping them raise funds before their accounting deadline on 30 June.
Everton were previously docked eight points after breaching the profit and sustainability rules (PSR), with Premier League clubs only permitted to make £105million worth of losses over a rolling three-year period.
The Times reported on 28 July Everton have sold their women’s team to a parent company in a move that should generate a paper profit of tens of millions of pounds that could help the club make new signings and still comply with the PSR rules.
Companies House submissions revealed Everton Football Club Women Ltd has been transferred to Roundhouse Capital Holdings, which is controlled by Dan Friedkin, the club’s owner.
However, Everton finance expert Paul Quinn reported on 28 July Everton have “not done a Chelsea” regarding the women’s team.
He added the ownership transfer has not been completed at a vast profit, while the profit for Roundhouse will occur once it brings in new investors.
Everton could spend profits on new signings
This article contains exclusive comment from Stefan Borson, a former financial adviser to Man City.
Everton are believed to still be feeling the impacts of their PSR issues after failing to invest significantly in their squad this summer.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson said: “Everton seemed to be briefing they’ve not done it for a big profit, and nor is it for an immediate PSR benefit for 2024-25, the season just gone.
“But I can’t really see that that’s completely truthful because there’s no purpose of doing it unless it is for a PSR uplift. But they say that we’ve done it because we’re looking for third-party investment.
“There’s no reason why you couldn’t search for the investment, and as part of the completion of the transaction, it all gets hived out into outside of the group, crystallizes the uplift in value, is registered into the current financial year and the new investor takes their piece at the time of completion.
“That’s the conventional way of doing it. But what they’ve done is they’ve done it just before the year end, which suggests that there was a reason why they did it just before the year end, that they wanted whatever benefits that they were going to get from it to be in the 2024-25 financial year.
“That can only be PSR profit and uplift, doing a Chelsea or a Villa. But there are mixed reports. The Times are saying that it was PSR-related, and then other people, who are close to Everton, say that it wasn’t.
“I can come up with various theories on it, but the most likely scenario is they’ve done it for a PSR benefit because they were there or thereabouts on PSR for 2024-25 and wanted to create a little bit of additional capacity going forward, so as anybody would do, they pulled the rip cord and sold the women’s team and created an internal profit, which is a perfectly sensible thing to do in this day and age.
“That’s what they appear to have done. But the slightly odd thing is that they seem to be briefing that they’ve done something different.
“I think it’s extremely likely that they’ve just done a Chelsea women’s team transfer to generate profits that creates additional capacity and that they’ll spend on footballers.”
Everton told £50m Tyler Dibling offer will be accepted
In terms of a potential incoming, Football Insider revealed on 2 August Everton could sign Tyler Dibling this summer for half of Southampton’s initial asking price.
Sources say the 19-year-old will be available for £50million, with the Saints initially valuing him at £100million.
The winger registered four goals and three assists in 38 appearances last season.
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