News that TFG plan to place Everton back on the market and walk away is another reality check for the Toffees' faithful.
To the footballing romantic, Everton are an undeniable giant of the English game - historic nine-time league champions boasting an intensely loyal fanbase and a new stadium on the banks of the Mersey.
But to the modern sports investor, particularly the wave of American private equity groups currently sweeping through English football, Everton isn't the most attractive financial acquisition.
Everton face a lengthy drawn-out sale as The Friedkin Group pull back
At the heart of Everton’s unattractiveness to potential suitors is the club's financial model.
According to Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, Everton recorded a wage-to-turnover ratio of 79% for the 2024/25 season - the season for which figures are most recently available.
In top level football, spending nearly four-fifths of every pound earned purely on player and staff wages is considered unsustainable. It leaves a thin 21% margin to cover matchday operations, debt servicing, travel, youth development, and administrative costs. For prospective buyers, an inflated wage bill relative to income signals an inefficiently managed asset that requires immediate cost-cutting before any real return on investment can be made.
Furthermore, Everton’s revenue fails to justify the magnitude of the club's profile. In 2024/25, Everton generated £197m. To put that in perspective, that is the same number generated by Crystal Palace, and £3m more than Fulham (£194m).
For US-based investors, who currently hold full or controlling stakes in over half of the Premier League's 20 clubs including Chelsea, Bournemouth and Leeds United, London-based sides like Palace or Fulham are a far more alluring proposition.
A capital city base provides built-in international prestige, corporate hospitality appeal, and global brand visibility. For a club with Everton's heritage to generate the same revenue as mid-table London outfits suggests their commercial reach isn't going the distance it needs to, casting doubt over their long-term growth ceiling to potential investors.
Optimists will point toward Everton's move to the state-of-the-art Hill Dickinson Stadium as something of a financial game-changer. While matchday income and commercial revenues will inevitably rise from the 2025/26 season onwards, the new venue comes with heavy financial baggage.
No club pays for a new stadium upfront, they utilise loans and complex debt structures. Any buyer stepping into the breach will not just be buying a football club but inheriting hundreds of millions of pounds in outstanding stadium financing debts that must be serviced regardless of performance on the pitch. That will be baked into any purchase price, according to The Times, and with a reported net debt figure of £380m, that makes TFG's asking price somewhere in the £800m range.
Complicating matters further is the state of the playing squad itself. Everton currently have the smallest squad in the Premier League. Worse still, the club spent the recent summer window effectively liquidating its most valuable playing asset, selling star man Iliman Ndiaye to Manchester City.
The club has diminished any incoming owner’s ability to generate internal capital through player trading. A buyer would be forced to spend heavily in the transfer market just to keep the team competitive, without the cushion of selling high-value squad members to offset the outlay.
Finally, there is the unavoidable reality of local geography. Everton remain the secondary commercial entity in a two-club city, living in the shadow of Liverpool’s global commercial footprint.
For American sports conglomerates looking to maximise international sponsorships and media dominance, investing in a second-tier brand within its own city is not what premium ownership groups look for. Investors seeking football clubs, particularly in the north of England, are far more likely to target single-club cities, where a lone team captures the region’s commercial ecosystem, civic backing, and fanbase without any of that being diluted.
The Premier League has never seen more American capital, with private equity funds and sports groups viewing English football as the world's premier sporting product.
However, as recent takeovers demonstrate, modern investors demand either global status, low-debt growth potential, or in some cases capital city positioning. Everton offer none of the three, are burdened by almost £400m in debt, run a bloated wage-to-turnover ratio, have a depleted playing squad, and tough regional competition.
The long and short of it is, the Toffees could face a long wait to find anyone willing to take on the challenge and with TFG intent on selling, influxes of cash to buy players and fund operations don't usually follow statements such as the one that's been released.
