IAN HERBERT: Everton’s attempts to hide financial failings show there’s a charlatan in charge 

It is tempting to suggest that Todd Boehly, the man calmly detonating Chelsea as he turns them into his personal game of Football Manager, is the worst owner in British football.

But that would be to overlook the individual ‘overseeing’ the club who quietly slipped out their financial results on Friday, hoping that the world wouldn’t notice.

The Friday bad news drop is a strategy Manchester City used when their spending was first putting them in alleged breach of UEFA’s spending rules but Everton’s figures really were something else. 

The few bleak paragraphs headed ‘Going Concern’ were a dagger to the heart of all those who love the dignity and history of this great club.

In ice-cold auditor-speak, the report said there was ‘a material uncertainty’ that Everton could continue as a going concern, if relegated to the Championship at the end of this season. Farhad Moshiri, the hapless owner at the wheel of the club, who has somehow managed to burn through £750million since 2016, has said he will keep the tap on. But even Everton’s directors cannot be sure. The auditors certainly are not.

Farhad Moshiri is the hapless owner at the wheel of Everton, as they battle against relegation

Fan discontent for Moshiri, depicted as a clown on this flag, is leading to a series of protests

Of course, Friday’s 42-page annual report did not tell the full story of Moshiri’s scandalous mismanagement of one our nation’s legendary clubs. 

There was no mention of the absence of relegation clauses in most of their players’ contracts. No mention of Dele Alli being back at the club this summer, on wages closer to £200,000 a week than £100,000, after his release by Besiktas. Nothing on how the few high value players left, like Jordan Pickford, would command a lower price if Everton are relegated and forced to sell.

And no adequate explanation of why the club are being referred to an independent commission, for an alleged breach of the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play rules, which could bring a points deduction next season.

Investigation by the Everton specialist the Esk, whose Goodison financial analysis is second to none, suggests the club were already in Premier League ‘special measures’ after apparently wildly flouting spending rules. 

They had agreed to sell players to the value of £100m by the end of the financial year just reported on, to avoid sanctions. Yet they failed to do so. Which, to put it politely, is a staggering level of incompetence.

The dignity of the supporters’ response to the alleged spending breach has been striking in the past week. 

Whenever Manchester City are charged with something like this, it is dressed up by their influencers as some kind of deep state conspiracy. But the view of many around Everton is that, as the Esk puts it: ‘When you sign up to the Premier League, you sign up to the rules.’

The indignation is reserved for Moshiri and his board who published those financial results on the last business hour of the last possible day within statutory limits, on Friday.

They could have been released in January, when they were signed off, yet have instead added to the maelstrom facing manager Sean Dyche – the man whose work has at least given the supporters something to cling to. 

One of the bitter ironies for those fans is that the new Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock – the face of the club’s future for so long – could become someone else’s, if relegation does come. One scenario is that it would be sold to raise cash and an arrangement reached by which Everton would become the tenant.

One of the most despicable aspects of this entire narrative is the way that supporter protest has been characterised as malign indiscipline when it has never been needed more. There were dark mutterings about fans going too far in January, when the directors were absent from the home defeat by Southampton. Nonsense.

Chairman Bill Kenwright is also feeling the heat and fans should be praised for speaking out

There is a lack of transparency and accountability at Everton which creates a divide with fans

Bill Kenwright – or, ‘Chairman Bill’ as he signs off his notes on the accounts – provided more of this characterisation on Friday.

He described in his notes how last season’s relegation escape act had made ‘the recent instruction given to myself and my fellow board members not to attend Goodison Park all the more painful. That has hurt deeply’.

No allusion to the fact that supporters find themselves excluded from any way of engaging with the leadership of the club. 

As the Esk observes, there is no form of on-the-record discussion about the finances with financial director Grant Ingles. No general meeting provision for shareholders. Where is the transparency and accountability?

The uncertainty over a points deduction leaves the club marooned in so many ways, with any search for new investors stone dead.

Moshiri’s valuation of the club has been an impediment in the past, as prospective investors such as Maciek Kaminski have walked away. Moshiri is under the illusion that someone will fork out the same £300m for Everton that the Saudis paid for Newcastle.

The team’s comeback against Tottenham on Monday revealed the fighting spirit that Dyche is engendering again. The unbridled delight across Goodison as Michael Keane’s goal flew in was a reminder that this is a place of football spirituality and soul.

It is a club which does not belong to self-publicists with more money than sense. Premier League survival would be welcome, a month or so from now, but then a broader existential challenge awaits: letting Moshiri know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is not welcome. Getting him out of the door.

FA are RIGHT to ask for longer Mitrovic ban 

The FA are quite right to want the eight-game ban issued to Aleksandr Mitrovic for his disgraceful conduct at Manchester United to be even longer, though you wonder whether there would have been such reprisals had he had not shoved a referee in a high profile live match.

We were treated to a cosy little charade from Mitrovic a few days ago, as he apologised and looked contrite, with this verdict in the offing. ‘I want to put this incident behind me,’ he said.

How comfortable for this hugely well-paid influencer to put it all in the past. Less easy for local referees like Barry Cropp. 

When we talked a while back, he’d just sent off a player for head-butting an opponent at an under-18s game. The head-butter and the head-butter’s father abused him on the pitch, on the dressing room approach and in the car park, as Cropp and his wife walked to the car. 

To rid our game of this filth, the example must come from the top. A 10-game ban for Mitrovic is not excessive.

The FA want to see Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic have his eight-game ban for shoving referee Chris Kavanagh during an FA Cup defeat against Manchester United extended

How sporting world has let down Ukraine

We have come to know a young Ukrainian girl here in Manchester, in the past year or so, as she has found refuge from the unfolding nightmare back home. Her own city came under attack at one point. I recall we hid the newspapers that weekend.

When she first arrived, there was a universal resolve that Russia was a pariah state, excluded and not to be tolerated as we all stood with Ukraine. But gradually and inexorably, sport’s resolve weakens. The All England Lawn Tennis Club reverses its ban on Russian and Belarusians. Fencing’s governing body agrees to Russian presence at next summer’s Olympics.

The IOC’s Thomas Bach waits to see how events play out in Ukraine before committing. Each weakening comes with carefully curated press statements, full of caveats and regret, obscuring the lack of backbone and moral fibre of those who, a year or so on, don’t actually stand with Ukraine at all.

Players from Russia and Belarus will return to Wimbledon this summer after the All England Club lifted its ban imposed following their countries’ invasion of Ukraine last year

Tough to see Soucek put out of misery

There was a time, a few years ago, when Tomas Soucek’s only challenge at West Ham was adjusting to playing at Christmas. 

He was a classic David Moyes acquisition – great value, great work ethic and part of a dynamic partnership with Declan Rice. But his life at West Ham is barren now.   

Against Southampton on Sunday, he was struggling to tackle, unsure of his role and there were cheers when he was substituted after an hour or so. You sensed that leaving the field was actually a relief for him. 

Coach Kevin Nolan came to out to meet him as he approached the bench, gripping him in what seemed to be a way of shielding him from the pleasure being taken at his departure. Nolan seemed to be saying: ‘I’ve been there.’

Such are football’s brutal realities.