Kenwright must go!

Bill Kenwright should resign immediately as Chairman of Everton Football Club, says Ricahrd Knights.

Let’s start by stating that this article is written more in sorrow than in anger. In 2009 he was rightly inducted into Everton’s Hall of Fame. In a vote by fans he was third in the poll behind Duncan Ferguson and David Unsworth. We haven’t forgotten that in 2000, almost single-handedly, Bill Kenwright rescued the club when he bought out Peter Johnson. Who can forget those dog days? The sacking of Joe Royle, the endless flirting with relegation, disastrous signings, the best players leaving and the club reduced to the laughing stock of the Premiership. No wonder the Kopites unfurled that infamous banner, ’Agent Johnson – Mission Accomplished’. Bill Kenwright mortgaged every possession and still had to rely on investment from his ‘friend’ Paul Gregg – remember him?

The best decision he ever made was to appoint David Moyes as manager, then to support him through thick and thin, and unlike certain Russian billionaires, allow him to actually manage the team. In the last five seasons we’ve finished in the top eight, the squad patiently built as players have been developed and nurtured. With limited funds Moyes has achieved miracles. Every season our prospects have looked brighter.

Other successes have included the club’s anti-racism campaigns the community initiatives, the women’s team and support for the Former Players’ Foundation. Over the last ten years a sense of stability if not pride has been reinstated.

Even where it’s gone wrong the situation has been beyond the club’s control, the failure to build a new stadium on King’s Dock in 2003 was solely down to lack of funds. Bill Kenwright is a millionaire not a billionaire and other than the discovery of oil in Drury Lane that’s unlikely to change.

So where did it all start to go wrong? For me it was 2007 when ’Destination Kirkby’ was announced. The fact was that a large minority of fans weren’t just opposed but appalled. The subsequent public inquiry revealed that even co-sponsors Tesco described the proposed new stadium as ‘modest’.

Just who is running the club? In 2006 Robert Earl (former CEO of Hard Rock Cafe, owner of the Planet Hollywood chain) bought Paul Gregg’s shares, apart from getting Sylvester ‘Rocky’ Stallone to appear at Goodison, his involvement with the club has been limited to say the least. Does he ever attend matches? Other board members include the anonymous Jon Woods and Sir Philip Carter who also never makes any public statements.

At an early stage in his career Bill Kenwright appeared in Coronation Street, the search for new investment and/or the sale of Everton has resembled a long running soap opera or history repeated entirely as farce. In 2004 Fortress Sports Fund were punted as new investors and then mysteriously disappeared from the scene. In recent years financier Keith Harris (no re-cycled jokes or clichés about Orville) was appointed to ‘find a buyer’. So how do we reach the situation where a Far Eastern ‘hedge fund manager’ is identified as a potential buyer, only to be revealed as a con-artist living in a one-bedroomed flat in Manchester? It just reeks of desperation, incompetence or both.

For years fans have been placated with the promise that sales of players would be re-invested in the purchase of new players. Recently the excuse was that ’85% of available funds’ was being directed towards the training ground at Finch Farm. One thing the infamous Blue Union – Bill Kenwright meeting did was to expose the brutal truth that every penny from transfers and the sale of Bellefield is being directed to pay off the interest charges. Why have the banks lost confidence in the club? What do they know that we don’t?

The danger is that Everton will be reduced to a fire sale of players to appease the banks, with Fellaini, Jagielka and Baines the first to go. With our best players leaving we will then lose our most valuable asset – David Moyes.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Blue Union meeting with Kenwright it must qualify as public relations catastrophe, it makes for painful reading. Despite the claims of breaches of confidentiality and threats of legal action, the accuracy of the transcript has not been denied. A chief executive can sack half the workforce, cut pay, reduce moral to zero and still remain in charge. In the long run you cannot run a football club without the support of the fans.

The Shareholders’ Association has also been treated with contempt, AGMs have been abandoned and replaced with ‘Forums’. In 2009 in response to persistent enquiries about the club’s finances, Bill Kenwright responded with, ‘I’m not answering your question… I’m bored with your question… you’re not getting an answer to the question.’

In the last week the final straw for many fans, like me, who continued to give Bill Kenwright the benefit of the doubt was the last-minute departure of Mikel Arteta. Despite poor form and injuries over the last two seasons he was without doubt our talisman, a player who could turn games and someone who was, apparently, committed to the club. We didn’t even have the consolation of a Lescott Mark II, ‘he’s just a greedy beggar’, Arteta was so desperate to leave a club bereft of ambition, that he took a £500,000 a year pay cut.

The club and Bill Kenwright seem to have retreated into the bunker of denial, any criticism of the ‘Dear Leader’ is the work of a tiny handful of ‘malcontents’, ‘renegades’ and ‘traitors’. Sorry, this is Everton not North Korea, we pay our money we have the right to criticise.

For the good of the club Bill Kenwright should resign while he is still in credit and with his credibility intact. The alternative is a long, debilitating battle with the fans, as with nuclear war the only outcome is mutually assured destruction and our children will inherit the desert.

We need an interim board appointed, with fans represented on it, that will have as its main agenda the sale of the club and new investment.

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum