 Welcome to Toffy TV, today I am joined by John Blane, it was the evidence annual general meeting last night, it was very different one John to one you're normally part of, so how did you feel it went, first of all, from a virtual point of view because normally you used to be at the Philharmonic and in the room with fellow shareholders and obviously the board as well? Well, yeah, I mean, for people who don't know, yeah, that's exactly since they were reinstated in 2013, they've all been at the Philharmonic, which is obviously a huge theatre and you can sit down and they're on stage and all that good stuff, and obviously because of the pandemic and, you know, social distance and all that. And my job at the shareholders association was supposed to the club many months ago now, and so well go ahead anyway, let's do it virtually and that's what happened. So I think the online format worked well, to be honest, and fair play to the club for doing it. Yeah, it worked. We all know what it's like with streaming and games and everybody getting all the ffume about the technology failing. But I mean, I'm sure there was handfuls of people who had a bit of a challenge getting on, but I think more than 400 people registered for the event. So if they all turned up, then it will have been probably the largest attended general meeting in a long time. And it was six or seven countries where people attended from who wouldn't get to attend, I guess, because they're many thousands of miles away if it had been live and in the room at the philly. So yeah, it was good. I think so. I was just going to say that I give people shareholders who were from other countries and I live abroad and work abroad or whatever give them the opportunity to. Well, you don't even have to live abroad. You know, how many people, normal working people, if you will, can travel up to London from London or down from the northeast or whatever, because fans and shareholders are throughout the country. And, you know, it's always at six o'clock on a workday weekend and that sort of thing. So it really is increases, you know, inclusivity and stuff like that. And one of the benefits I said to the club when it was promoting the idea was just that people who wouldn't be able to attend could now. But obviously the international element is just a whole new opportunity. It really is cool. Yeah, definitely. Obviously there was a, you know, a format we had Bill Kenwright that spoke about the niche part of Baxendale, our CEO, Sasha Ryancheff, finance director. We had something from Marcel Branson, obviously Carlo Antillotti as well. Just for a general takeaway from the AGM, how, you know, what were you, what were kind of your takeaways? Is it better for me to go through what each person delivered and actually the couple of things about that will that be easier to sum up, do you think? Well, maybe. I mean, you know, later today I'll be recording business matters and I think you said when we were chatting before maybe that'll get a bit more heavy. But that'll get heavy perhaps towards the financial side, which is the things Sasha would have said. You know, happy to talk about those because some of those do crossover into the sporting side, particularly sort of financial play and things like that. Denise, of course, as chief exec gives that very overarching view of the state of the union, you know, where we're at, the impact COVID has brought, where we're at on the stadium and the like. You talk about Marcel Branson was good again, but there was also an interview with Carlo Antillotti. So ask anything you like and I'll just try and lead you in the right direction. But I think the stuff, the guys who watched this might be most interested, of course, is might be what Marcel and Carlo said. And then Sasha in relation to, you know, regulations and things. Yeah, definitely. But first, before we get to that, I mean, obviously Denise spoke about the impact, obviously, of COVID. You know, I think when you had a chat in December about this, you know, the upcoming AGM. And we spoke about the evidence just posted the losses and 67.3 million or whatever it was attributed directly to the impact of COVID. It has been difficult for the club, as well as obviously every other club as well, but it has been a difficult year, hasn't it, John, really, because of COVID and in care and losses like that, that maybe the club weren't expecting to over the past 12 months? Yeah, I do. And I think if you look at the accounts of you do that from the financial position, which clearly Denise touched on and then Sasha went into in more detail. I mean, without sounding too dramatic, you know, there was no great, it was drama free that part of the meeting because, as you say, the club did this year get the accounts out and shareholders were able to see them before the meeting, which didn't happen last year, of course. So if you want to think of it as the bad news was already out there, you know. But yeah, COVID has had an impact. I think Everton have tried to treat it in the right way. We've taken a view on the value of our assets, you know, so there's some impairments in there. So therefore the losses are greater because of that and they are one time losses. I think Sasha tried to explain to an audience which is obviously broad and diverse that fundamentally, yes, we lost lots of money. Had it not been for COVID, we would still have lost lots of money, but not as much. And when people start throwing around, you know, the worst or the second worst losses in Premier League history and all this sort of stuff, then if you took COVID impact out and potentially say the stadium impact out, there's still significant losses on around 50 million quid, but no more record breaking losses, if you think. But the reality is COVID has happened. We are building a new stadium or we hope to build a new stadium and being there as quickly as we can. So it is a real state of the business and without the largest shareholder putting his hand in his pocket, then we would be in a rather precarious position. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Well, one of the things you just mentioned there, she did such on Denise, which was, of course, the stadium, Bramley Moldoch, where we were up to. There was no concrete stuff in there, which we knew anyway, because how can we without the council having that next meeting? Denise basically said, oh, Denise Barra Baxendale, Professor, Denise Barra Baxendale basically said that to give it a full title. Basically, if the minute it can get planning permission, we are ready to go with that, which the club have already, that messaging has been constant for a while now that the club are confident the minute they give them the go ahead, they will be in there. And we know that the club have been down a Bramley Moldoch doing different types of testing, the company they've got, Lango Rock doing the testing and what have you. And Denise also said in the second stage of due diligence over the financial backing for the stadium. So that sounds really positive, John, doesn't it? I know people have, certain people have took it that it's still negative because there's no date that Everton have said, because she did say sometime in 2021, which essentially sometime could be in two weeks' time, it could be May. Yeah, I mean, I think that they are, you know, which they try to explain to people for the last couple of years that will get to the point where things are outside their control, which is it's gone into a black box called planning. And it will come out when it comes out. I mean, I think the club will probably say that despite what the two merchants might say, or believe the project is very much happening. Clearly, until the current reason for not making progress is removed, i.e. have we got planning permission or not, we won't see if we truly walk the talk on everything else is ready. I mean, for a while now the club has said that we would, you know, to be in for season 23-24, which was what generally people have been told to expect, we needed to get a decision and really get on site properly before the summer of this year. Denise said that slightly differently yesterday to what I've been indicated before, but not in a big deal, only in the sense of most of us probably knew that anyway, suggesting that the stadium wouldn't be open for three years after we do get through this. Clearly, three years from this summer is the summer of 2024. So we won't be in that season, will we? The club have never said we will be in for the beginning of that season, but I personally, based on what they said, I was thought, a bit like Tottenham, we might get in in the early part of 2024. Well, the project has contingency in it, so maybe it's still possible, maybe they're just managing expectation, but it certainly seems to be, if we get in there before the summer, it will certainly be the claim, I guess, that would be in for season 25. Yeah, well, 24-25. 24-25, yeah, so three years basically isn't it. Which, good things should be worth waiting for. If we got in for 24-25, which would be August instead of January, you know, a six month delay with this COVID thing, perhaps by some wouldn't be seen as too bad with it. No, let's see what that, let's just get the plan on permission first. No new news, no new news basically. No, you know. So moving on, let's go to what Marcel Brans said and then maybe that feedback into a bit of what Trash has done as well. Obviously Marcel Brans gave a presentation and he spoke about how the squad has changed, you know, talking about the age, the average age now. Yeah, coming down. Coming down, which has been good. He spoke about the club's transfer strategy in the summer. What I found interesting was, and listen, we know, we kind of knew this anyway, but what I found interesting was, I'm saying, that everything had to walk away from a couple of deals that they had done once COVID hit. We obviously know, we know it was Gabrielle who's ended up at Arsenal, we know that everything were very close to clinging to that sign in February and then obviously COVID impact. The police said there was a couple of deals, so interestingly we had to walk away from that because of the direct impact. But he then said they'd identified a couple of midfield players, a wide, a goal scorer and winger, which he then confirmed Hamers Rodriguez was free, which made a lot of people very happy again. Ben was free. Ben, yeah, he was, he was, but I think Hamers is slightly more productive on the beginning. I'm just making the observation transfer fees go down, salaries go up. Salaries go up. Listen, it is what it is. We know, we know what we're getting at Hamers, but you know, he planned, put that out very clearly and done his plan and how many people have gone off the door. I mean, one thing was alarm, not alarm, but it shows you the state of the club of some of the transfers we've had in is that we've sold about, I think he said there's been something like 70 outs since he came. And we've only recouped 100 million. And I guess that 30 million, that basically was gone of, wasn't it? Yeah, he talked about this last year, of course, when he was actually in the theatre. And I think that's the first time we'd seen him present because it's the first time he was on the board. And he is open and candid. And, you know, people who may criticise, you know, and I think the story for improvements on how we do the general meetings, no doubt about it. But certainly in the digital world, there's room for improvement, different types of things become an issue, but it was a really good start to doing it this way. But let's not lose sight of the fact. I think I can't imagine any other football club, never mind a Premier League one doing what was done yesterday. And if they're listening, they just do one and prove us wrong, so to speak. And certainly a sporting director standing up and telling us how it is like that is pretty amazing. And I've asked the club, are they going to share the videos with that? Much of this was pre-recorded. Are they going to share the videos, which I know that are floating about in the world already, because people will have done it on the phones and God knows what else? Are they going to share the videos and they don't know yet because it's only just happened last night? But I think fans and, yeah, fans, maybe journalists as well I suppose, they've probably seen them. But fans would probably love to see what Marcel said and indeed what Carlo said, because Carlo was a brief interview with Carlo as well, which you might want to talk about later. But yeah, he told it from the hip. He told it in a typical Dutch way. No drama, factual. And as you say, those messages are this COVID thing made us walk away from deals. Since he's turned up, we've done a huge volume of deals. He did also, by the way, and you won't have seen any of this yet, I guess, some of the slide where he did some, maybe, was it Marcel or was it Sasha, I can't remember. It doesn't really matter. Somebody did some slide where it showed how much we spent compared to others and how much we brought in compared to others. And whilst neither of them necessarily what we really wanted to do, because obviously we walked away from some deals and we haven't got rid of offloading as a phrase. Offloading is the one, yeah. So we haven't offloaded some of the players we want to offload. What we have done, basically, is we've spent less than others and we've recouped more than others. If you take the tops out, the Chelsea's have burned money. And I think in the round he was saying we're doing a good job and we are where we want to be. I know we shared that Sheffield United had a bigger net spend than Everton's show. Yes, as you know, Everton Business Matters, we're not great fans of net spend because if we're paying Hamers a quarter of a million quid a week, then the fact we've got to have on a free transfer might not make much difference to the account, might it? But having the quarter of a million a week and a transfer fee would be hugely punitive. So, and that's what fans need to understand really that these guys are juggling particularly around financial play and those sorts of things, you know, the difference between bearing amortisation costs and salaries and so on. And I think I've done like two blogs in my goddamn life. I know some people do two a week, but I did one a long time ago about when Lukaku was going and how much we could afford to pay in per week because it would be cheaper than buying a player. 25 million pound player costs you 100 grand a week in amortisation costs, so you could say well let's just give the player 100 grand a week extra and not pay a transfer fee and that's where the Hamers type deals can be done, I suppose. But yes, sorry, I'm talking too much, go. I mean, I do like the way he says it, we'll be looking for some players to pursue their next step in their careers, in other words, off you go, other possibilities are other clubs. Yeah, and I think everyone listening and watching this will know who's at the top of that list, you know, so. Yeah, definitely. I mean, he done his two players for every position slide, didn't he, and where people fitted him, but one thing that I know. It wasn't up very long, so you couldn't particularly analyse it. Yeah, but it'll be what we know anyway. We know who plays. It will. And he said he wants a squad of 24 players ideally, which is two players. Yeah, I think last year he said a squad of 23, 24-ish for the obvious reasons of what you just said, perhaps an extra goalie, but two players on all the other positions. And the squad's 27, so he did say last night it's bigger than they want it to be, so that alone says that he wants to do some more offloading. Oh God, definitely. The one thing that's gone around social media and has been picked up obviously is the fact that he said he didn't expect any incumbents this January. He were obviously in the midst of a transfer window. Listen, you can, I'm not surprised because I wasn't expecting that much anyway. We've only brought Jared Branthwaith in during his tenure here. But the other thing is he didn't categorically say there isn't any chance on this air that a player will come in. He just said we're not expecting. And I guess, John, the devil is in the detail, is what you like to say sometimes, is that he, while not ruling it in, he didn't 100% rule it out either, did he? It's an interesting one, Baz, because it depends what your personality, psychology, propensity is. Because if you want to go off and ffume and say we could win the league, we could get into Champions League, we need to get into Europe and I can't believe we're not going to buy a striker, whatever, whatever, whatever. Particularly if you're having that view based on what someone's told you somebody else has said, then, but I heard what he said, you know. And what he, I didn't write it down, I suppose I should have done, but what he said was we don't expect to bring anyone in in January, but we're always open. Sorry, we are alert to opportunities. Well, I had a brief chat through DMs with a shareholder who was there. He remembered the first bit, we're not going to bring anyone in in January, and I remembered the second bit, but we're alert to opportunities. And Brans has said something from day one, there isn't good value in January. You often don't get the players you want in January. If we are alert to opportunities, I think that's a clear steer that says if the players we want, that's myself, the director of football and the manager. By the way, he said in his thing that him and Carlo were joined up, Carlo himself said it the other way around, him and Marcel are joined up. So the player that they want is there and they can get him for the right price and all that good stuff. And of course the offloading is proving successful. And there's always the majority shareholder who has a propensity to stick his hand in his pocket, then it'll happen. But the summary of all that, there's so many if buts there, the summary of those, that surely has to be, we don't expect to bring anyone in in January. It doesn't mean we're not trying, doesn't mean that it might not happen, it won't happen rather, but let's just be real and that's him just being candid and open. It also means the manager is relatively comfortable with what he's got at the moment as well. Yeah, I mean if they decide that it's better to wait till the summer because they can get you the want and maybe have a little bit more money to play with for whatever reason, then that's the way it is. They're in charge of it aren't they? We can stamp our feet and be mown, missed opportunity or whatever, but they're in charge of everything aren't they? I guess the challenges that are there, Sasha Ryan serve I think, went over a couple of these. Because obviously FFP gets thrown about quite a lot John, doesn't it? FFP this and we can't do that. Maybe 10 years ago with Mishiri and Mr Usman offshore in his boat, maybe we would have been doing things a little bit differently such as the way, not quite to the extent Man City did it, but the way Chelsea have done it and stuff, whereas if you've got a fella there that goes, yeah I'll write that off, no worries. It wasn't the same stringing things we've got in place now, which is obviously enable PSG to jump up rungs because of what they have and Chelsea and Man City got there a lot faster. We're in a different climate now aren't we and we do have to juggle everything. You've just said that yourself, we're heavily reliant on Ffarrad Mishiri because we haven't got, you've said it many times in the past and on business matters as well, we haven't got the commercial deals that give us that extra room in the budget or whatever, so we are defined by a set of guidelines on a budget and we know that we're up against it. We all know we are, we spent a lot of money since the new owner come in and we haven't had a great retain on any of it really. Sorry, just interject for a second because it's when perception bumps up against reality isn't it, I'll just pick you up briefly. Sorry, I'm not going to fundamentally disagree, we just make an observation that in one of the things that was said last night that in the time that particularly Marcel has been around, the actual squad that has value, you know exactly what the squad's worth, the number of players has gone down and so if you think a couple of years ago whenever it was, the squad was valued at whatever 300 million quid and there was x of them. Now there's a smaller number than x and the squad's value, it's 450 million quid so we've got value, we've increased the value of the squad. But when people talk about getting all uptight about we need to bring a striker in in January and the director of football who's presumably played over a million pounds a year to know a little bit more about it than we do, thinks I don't think so and people get all uptight about it, they forget Totens the striker and we bought him in January. That's what you get in January. Good point, John, good point. FFP, I'm sure it's come up. Who dealt with that, John, and what was the club's response to that? Was it a question because I know that since your elders were able to ask questions. What happened last night was when they got to the questions bit they weren't interactive and I think that somebody asking it like we're doing this. So that's a potential improvement for the future if we're going to do digital general meetings. So the questions were sent in in advance and people Darren Griffiths then read them out and then the pre-recorded answer from the right person was shown on the screen. And so Sasha answered the question about financial fair play and it is Russian, so maybe they like the Dutch, they're very structured and analytical. So part of his answer was it doesn't apply to us because we're not playing in Europe. But we are fully compliant with the Premier League rules and comfortably so. But he did say should we qualify for Europe, we will comply with the rules as well. So they've got line of sight of what they need to do to make sure we stay compliant, which is what I took that to me. I wouldn't say we should forget financial play and say it's not a problem because what we don't know or what the remedies are. But the most obvious remedy is offloading. So let's give the director of football a chance to make tracks on the offloading. And so then if you want to buy players you've got what we're talking about here is the accounting treatment of that and then of course the cash side. And I think when Fahad Mishiri has said in the past as long as I'm around money won't be a problem. That's the cash side. But there's no point in dipping into his pocket if we reach financial fair play. So that's the balance enact in the plate spinning that needs to be done. And it needs to be joined up and in simple terms it's a trinity, isn't it? Because the manager wants to play as he wants and he wants them when he wants them. Which is why we bought players outside of the age range that the director of football has said we're going to target. He did and notwithstanding that the average age is still falling and that excludes Moise Keane as well. And so him and the manager need to be joined up from a sporting perspective and then they need to bring their mate Sasha to the table from a financial point of view. And they need to pull the levers and turn the wheels and stuff and say what can we really do then. And let's be candid here despite all the ffume and the naysayers and the people who are in the now and all that good stuff. We seem to be having increasingly effective transfer windows. So let's hope that this one's effective where good to me looks like we get rid of players. Allowing the manager and the director of football to have some freedom to bring players in in the summer. That was really going to be my next point. Are you confident sitting there that even despite the challenges we face, the club will be able to go and bring another maybe three, four players in this summer as well. Because I think what everyone is looking at is that for the first time or if it certainly feels like that. It feels like from when Carlo Antolotti's come in, he's been here just over a year. We were dunking and doing a good job to get us moving in the right direction but we were still 14th or something. And what are we at four points off the top of the table or something like that at the minute. I'm very much in the home for people are saying the title but let's say very much in the home for Champions League places or Europa League places as we stand obviously it's a long season. And people are just sorry just to finish and this is why I think people are going over if we could just buy a winger now and a striker now we could win the league. But what I mean by that is if the plan is we continue our progression and get to the summer and then build again to do that. We're going to need some money out. We're without selling a ritual as in or a lucidine or something like that. So are you confident that we're still going to be able to spend money in the summer? I'm not one for guessing generally. I think the easiest thing in the world is to say oh times are hard and difficult. I mean I think that the phrase I liked from Marcel was alert to opportunities. And I think we talked about this and I've been in business matters before know that we're recording again later today so no doubt we'll end up talking about it again. If our board is joined up and we've got clear understanding of how decisions are made and what we're capable of and so on. Then this is perfect environment to take advantage of circumstances because there will be clubs you need to sell as well. And they might want to sell at X and we might want to only pay half of X. And so as ever these things and it will work the other way around in the offloading game. I mean it's pretty clear I guess to me. Players like Towson and I'm talking about the ones around the squad now, not the Balasies who are held at arm's length. But players like Towson, JoJo, Kenny, Bernard, they could all go in January. And if they did all go in January then we would think I think that that's a good January. Because fringe players have gone, minimally the wages have come off and so on and hopefully we get a bit of a transfer fee and that sort of stuff. If people think then we're just going to take three players out of the role played and not do anything about that during that window, then they're a bit daft aren't they? So it's if some books and so I think that they'll balance the books in the right way. And this is a long bloody way of getting to the answer to your question, which is well yeah of course we'll buy the players in the summer. And if some books around it all, we need to trust in Carlo and Marcel and again frankly anyone who thinks Carlo is making all the decisions and we do what he wants. I think that in CloudCookerland as well. So those two stroke three people need to be really joined up. Right, just to finish there was an interview with Carlo Antelotti. There was? If you like it, what did he take from that on? What did he give any clear message in that or was it a bit more about what was Crosby? I've lost my notes to be honest. I can remember what he said when I lost my notes so I can't read them to you. Sorry, I'm distracted because my mate who's a Derby fan has just sent me a message saying two and a half year contract. So I'm assuming Rooney's being made the manager, but anyway, no doubt two and a half year contract. So maybe the change of ownership is going to happen as well. Anyway, back to your question. Yeah, Carlo, it was only about I don't know 10 minutes or something. And him and Darren again. And he just, you know, he's like, he's but a cool dude, isn't he? So he thinks we are where we wanted to be, which Darren never pursued him by what that meant. But let's just say he's happy with his squad and he's happy. We're in the top four, I suppose. He did ask, sorry, Darren did, about getting out and about in Crosby. And he basically, Carlo laughed and said, I can't go outside the door without talking to Evertonians. But he did use the word unfortunately, but I think he meant I can't see them at the ground. But when I go out shopping, they're all enthusiastic and stuff. So, and he talks about Duncan, very pleased to have Duncan as his assistant and on his staff. He obviously thinks that's good. He briefly talked about others, both him and to a degree Marcel, I think, want more Evertonians in and around the club. Which I rather hope is a very subtle way of saying, and anyone who's listened to me privately, and I'm going to say it now, my own view has been for a while, there's too many redshites at Finchfarn, whether they're good coaches or not. And maybe that's going to be fixed a little bit. And certainly Marcel, by the way, talked about all the stuff he's been doing in the background, restructuring Finchfarn, the change in role for Unsworth and Emeril and Bain. Oh, a new scout thing, yeah, the new scout network, isn't it? I mean, the key there was, he says he's turned over the scouting network, so there's only half the number of scouts that there was. And they're covering more games than the other lot were. So you have to ask yourself what's been bloody going on. And while he's been distracted, I guess, trying to deal with the mess that Walsh left behind, people have been chugging along in their own sweet way. And I guess he got a bit of head room and he started to correct that as well. So all that's goodness. Carlo just seemed cool and happy. We are where we want to be. We know what we're doing. Me and Marcel are joined up. And we want to win things. And of course, he referenced Howard as well. Good. Right. Brilliant. I'm going to let you go because I know you are now going to go and do your Everton Business Matters podcast. Yeah, two o'clock, yeah. Which will be pulled apart that ADM in my new detail by John Paul and Roger. So make sure you give that Everton Business Matters podcast a listen to it. I'm sure John will tweet it and the official account of that. I will, mate, yeah. When it's done. Big thanks John for taking time out to join me today. Thank you very much. Very informative as always. Thanks for watching. Make sure you give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven't. And if you want more videos, join us on page. And don't forget to check out John on Everton Business Matters. See you later.