Your Everton morning headline for Wednesday, March 30.
Bill Kenwright makes 'unacceptable' Rafa Benitez admission
Bill Kenwright declared Everton’s form under Rafa Benitez as “unacceptably disappointing”.
The Blues chairman said the club had been forced to make top-level changes over the past year and named Benitez’s departure among them. He also praised the ambition of his replacement Frank Lampard, telling him: “All Evertonians wish you well, Frank”.
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Kenwright’s comments came in the introduction to Everton’s 2020/21 accounts, released on Tuesday evening. He used the platform to pay tribute to ‘Goodison’s great gentlemen’ - Jimmy Gabriel, Walter Smith and Gordon Lee, club heroes who have died over the past year, while also offering his condolences to the friends and family of Andrew Devine. Mr Devine died last year as a result of injuries suffered in the Hillsborough tragedy.
Referring to matters on the pitch, Kenwright turned to the end of Benitez’s regime. Benitez and the club parted ways in January after just one win in 13 Premier League ties.
Joe Thomas has the full story here.
Everton take £260m hit
The true impact of the pandemic on Everton's finances was laid bare with the publishing of their accounts for the 2020/21 period.
Having posted record losses of £139.9m for 2019/20 there were expected further losses for the most recent accounting period, with a £120.9m loss posted for the most recent financial year. That takes Everton's total losses for the past two financial years to £260.8m, the highest recorded in the Premier League across the two seasons so far. Of that figure, Everton make around £170m of it directly attributable to the impact of COVID-19.
There can be no sugar coating the financial situation that the accounts reveal, and Everton's challenges in ensuring they fly under the threshold for the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules have been proof of that. A lack of success on the pitch that didn't match the investment into the squad, a flat market with regards to player sales and trying to push ahead in the background with a £500m stadium build have all contributed to tough times for the Toffees and majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri.
But the picture painted in the accounts isn't exactly the picture right now. The wage bill for 2020/21 stands at £182m, a rise of £17m year on year. That figure means that the wage bill at the end of the most recent financial year accounted for 94.2 per cent of turnover, compared to 89 per cent in 2019/20. That is a figure way above UEFA's recommended wage to turnover spend of 70 per cent.
Dave Powell has the full story here.
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