 Welcome to Toffy TV. I'm joined by John Blane of Everton Business Matters and also the Chairman of the Everton Shared Olders Association. Hello, John. Good afternoon. We are in... This afternoon, yeah. This afternoon, yeah. We are in mid July. Of what is I suppose the next seven to ten days will be quite, well next ten days will be quite pivotal for Everton because we are going to see the new stadium drawings and things like that. So we'll have a little chat about that and also a little chat about the transfer window because people discuss some finances online and things like that and people aren't happy with whatever they've spent and all that. But let's begin. Let's begin. Sorry, who's not happy? There's a few Evertonians online who are not happy. We've spent too much. And others that we haven't spent enough. Well there is. There was someone online who said we wouldn't spend the penny and we ordered the app so that's one person wrong. Anyway, on to the stadium stuff first and foremost. Obviously the ground. The 26th is the second phase of public consultation as it goes there. Preview on the 25th? Yeah. Club of doing a preview on the 25th. Just without any inside knowledge. What do you expect the fans of that preview event to see on the 25th? I think it will. Oh. Good question. Clear that they can't see the actual Cherubang that they're going to tour the Liverpool City region. Or maybe they will. Maybe they'll be there. Titanic's big enough isn't it I suppose. But I think it would probably be a mimicking of, that sounds a bit too formulaic doesn't it? But similar to what went on at St Luke's because that was a good format which is predominantly Dan Meese on his feet. The architect who's been held back on a leash for probably 18 months now isn't it? Yeah. And go through that approach of what the design concept was all about. What they were striving to do. How it's got to fit in with all the heritage and almost uniqueness of the site in certainly Premier League football in terms. But to show far more exciting things than we saw then at St Luke's. Which I don't know what they were really called but they were more like technical drawings weren't they rather than this is what it's going to look like. This is what it's going to feel like. And I rather hope that the teasing that Dan's been doing for so long. And the claims from all those who've seen stuff or claimed they've seen stuff is proven to be correct. Which it is a beautiful stadium sitting on the banks of the Royal Blue Mersey. And we're all going to be proud of it. Notwithstanding the capacity which I feel obliged always to mention. But I mean it's going to be CGI's and things like that. So I guess there's going to be fly-throughs and walk-throughs and stuff. I mean we've got a little bit of a taste of what Brandon Moore might be like with the refurbishment they're doing of the executive loungers and stuff like that. And that's all sharper isn't it and more modern and things. And you can sort of try and visualise what that's going to be like when there's a lot more space to play with. So yeah I mean the fans with which I am one have been waiting to see what it's going to look like. And the clocks ticking down towards it happening. I mean you talk about people complaining when you're going to come to transfer it and stuff. You talk about people complaining about that. But there's still people out there expecting this to get pulled at the last minute. Whether it's the road show that's going to get pulled or the whole goddamn project. You know we had our, we'd be sorry, the Shells Association. We had one of our regular meetings with the club a couple of weeks back. And everything is still on track for what they've been saying in the past. So you know about doing the consultation, submitting the planning application and then hopefully getting that approved early 2020 and start building the thing. I think it's been cranked up as obviously as we moved towards the images being shown. There's 3D images what they've said, there is the fly by like you've said. Well it's CTI so whatever fanciness you can do with computers generating stuff. Then we're going to see it. Henry Wynter done a really good piece yesterday. And obviously Witty Canyon was speaking in that. I don't know what time it was doing, it could be now for all we know. Who knows. But obviously Evan have done the homework there. And they're trying to head off a lot of potential questions about the preparation for it. We saw there's been a little bit of UNESCO chat over the last couple of weeks with a lot of our friends who share the city with. Well not a lot but a few, not happy with the UNESCO World Heritage. Where do you stand in terms of the World Heritage? I think that's interesting because I've saw a lot of the stuff on social media. A lot of it was why now? Why is this all a problem? Are they going to pull it? People start throwing phrases about public enquiries, getting called in and all this sort of stuff. I've just said to you that in the last couple of weeks we've had one of our regular course in the meetings that the shareholders association has with the club which is Denise basically. So the chief exec Richard was there and because we always asked questions about the stadium then Mo would just all the PR for it was there as well. I think Colin was out of town but he'd been to previous ones and everything's been quite consistent. But to put this in context about things blowing up all of a sudden. These meetings are every three months thereabouts. Obviously Diaries move a little bit but give or take the quarterly. The previous one, UNESCO were in the building. UNESCO stroke Historic England. I had a quick notice on the screen and the sort of images that Dan had shown in St Luke's were there. So let's call that being sold to. Not at 2359. They've been trying to do that throughout the process. Now people can be critical about whether this softly, softly, slowly, slowly approach is effective or not. And the proof of the pudding as you might say is going to be how quickly do we get a decision on the planning application. Because you're quite right when you say head off questions. I think that sort of has a negative connotation to it. I think what they're trying to do is to be so informative and preposition as many people as possible that there aren't questions. Because in business terms I guess the example would be, say you as, I don't know, what he penned over there claims he's creative. So the creative director says I want to buy some stuff. And you're in a board meeting and the chief executive goes how much is that then? And he goes X. Now if the CEO just turns to the FD and says is this all right? And the FD says yes. That's the end of it isn't it? Because you've gone to the expert and the expert says she said yes it's okay. And the same applies here. When the planning application goes in you want those experts who are going to be asked what do you think to give a good answer. And I think they're putting a fair amount of effort into keeping close to organisations like Historic England where they try or wrong. I refer to as UNESCO's local agents of you will. And do everything they can but not roll over. Some people might think you're going to give things you don't have to give in any negotiation. But if you see the quotes attributed to Richard from the Henry Winter article, I think that's front foot stuff. That is, we're doing everything right but we're giving it you an inch don't take a yard. Because you know it's almost the sentiment is it will be a disaster for the regeneration of this state if it doesn't get built. And I think blues and reds alike should recognise that. We can have the banter, the red half or the red third or the red quarter or whatever they are. Talking about you're never going to get it built, you haven't got the money, your skin, that might go into your transfer questions I suppose and all those sorts of things. But fundamentally it's going the way it's supposed to go. And I mean you say it's pivotal. I think it becomes critical because I think they the club have to go through this second phase of consultation. Remember it's not fan consultation, it's a public consultation. So it's the public again, proving or seeking to prove that with more detail the city and the Liverpool city region are still fully behind the project. Because Nefertonians by default will be, won't they? And then the plan application goes in. And that's the bit when it all gets a bit squeaky because you lose control then. It goes into committees, it goes into whatever. But if momentum builds in the right way and then we get a relatively short decision timeframe then naysayers who think it's been going too slow is what you invest up front you get back in the back end of the project. They're all 80-20 type behaviours. But clearly if the standard planning cycle might be nine months, if we take nine months a year or more as we have to get to the point when we submit it and it still takes nine months then clearly we're going to lose out aren't we? So clearly there's some strategic planning in there that helps. We make the planning decision a lot easier by effectively doing the stuff that would go on in that nine months of the planners thinking about it beforehand. And that's I guess we're going to Westminster comes in. I think I tweeted yesterday, I'm not sure which MPs they've gone to see, it clearly is north 600 plus of them. But you'd assume it's going to be the north west based ones, the ones who are directly impacted by what's going on. And then key decision makers, whether it be Secretary of State or permanent sex or whatever, people who can influence any outcome. So it's cool I think. My Mrs would say are you excited? I don't know about you guys but I'm not excited. But I will be paying attention on the 25th when the first images come up. And if it gets a bit of a wow then I think the club can give itself a bit of a pat on its back. I think the excitement's got to be a bit of excitement because we've been told about this for so long now. It feels like so long. I mean it's what 20 years since the King's Dock was being spoken about. So it's been a long time coming that we've recognised we have to move and go listen. This particular project has been a couple of years now and we're still waiting to see an image of the grant. So I think there will be an excitement. There'll also be a nervousness I think from supporters because Dammi's has made some big claims. Well it was cranked up six, nine months ago and that's why I'm not excited because it missed its moment, doesn't it? Why use the word momentum? Momentum has to build now. Well it's 15 months or 16 months since St Luke's. There you go because it was in March. It was March, February or whatever it was. March-ish. Just finally on the stadium before we move on briefly to the transfer window. Do you expect there to be any change with regards to the capacity or do you still think Everton will say it's 52,000 that is what it is? Because there was 52,000 being mentioned, safe standards being mentioned, blah blah blah. Do you think it'll still be safe? Yeah I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's more. You've heard me before but I personally think it could be more without a huge amount of cost being spent, maybe get to 55 or something. I think the club are evolving the way they present this extra 10K because I think it's now and again sorry if I misunderstood what I heard. That extra 10K isn't all to do with safe standing. Some of it's real seats and if it's real seats those real seats presumably could go in now. Or on day one and day one let's not forget is more than three years away. So even if the planning application goes through reasonably quickly. So I still stand by a personal hopeful view of the world that says when the stadium does open in August 23 for the first live game. And surely if they can fiddle the other mod playing on a Friday then we can be fiddled for our first game of that season to be at home coming. That it will be 55,000 people in their minimum whether that's just because of seating or sorry you know safe standing and the like. But I just don't believe frankly that all the 10,000 is going to come from standing because even at sensible ratios it's just far too many people standing it's just not going to happen. To me it has to be at least 55,000. Moving on to the transfer window obviously we've got just over three weeks till a window closes. We've bought a player again this week Fabian Delph so far we've brought in Jonas Lace, we've brought in Andre Gomez permanently and we've got Fabian Delph. I personally think he's a good sign. I think he's a good one here. For the club. And for him? And for him? And for him a very good sign. At £30 million spent so far we were being paired on and Billy was chatting before about you know possible. Billy's got biscuits. Billy has got his eating chin. Do you know it's off camera there? There's a jaffa cake down there Jon. It just glanced across and I thought he's there doing his best. Do you know it's eating impression. We were talking about the possible money that everything may spend so it was saying a centre forward 40 million has been thrown around for Moise Ken. He's apparently known even though I'm calling him Moise Ken. A right footer, sorry a left footer right winger anywhere between 25 to 35 million has been spouted so that would be 70 to 105. So that would be 140 million spent. Gross. Gross. But obviously we've sold Nicola Blasic. We're going to sell them all to Luckman. We've sold Anthony Robinson, we'll sell him the young Ykiru. Gana. This spellet will probably potentially go as well and that would leave Everton just off very general. Broad brushes you like to use. Calculations of about 80, 70 million, 60 million spent this summer. It isn't ridiculous but again it's test and Everton. What do you say to people who look at this negatively? The fact that we aren't just throwing money about everywhere in terms of, you know, I've seen a lot of people and a lot of people messaged us and will say why aren't we just buying, you know, why have we got to sell players to buy players or where to that effect? I mean. How many houses have those people got? How many which? Houses have they got? I don't know. Why don't they just keep buying houses? It's about affordability and sustainability. Is it a pure cash flow problem or do you look at it? I mean my take on it is buying players wise, Everton have got the money there to buy players. I think what they haven't got the money for is budget wise in terms of wages and everything else. And also you can't keep just going like that with money. Okay. I'm not quite sure what you said then. What I said was we can buy players. Cash wise? For transfer fees? Transfer fees I don't think are that much of a problem. But I do feel that wages are a problem at some of these players because we've still got a big bloat at some of these players. By wages you mean some of these players want huge wages and we've got, you know, and so you've got a recurring cost. But as, you know, we've done this to death many times on business matters, Everton business matters. It's the total cost of ownership that counts. So if we give a player £100,000 a week it's £5 million a year. If he's on a five-year contract it's going to cost us £25 million in salary. And if he costs us £25,000 a year it costs us £10 million a year, 50 over five. If we can pay him £50,000 a week then you can pay a lot more on the transfer fee. If we spend less on the transfer fee we can pay him more in the salary. And so that's where you get into this thing and then of course you've also, which is the cute part, is yes you buy a player and you have him on a five-year contract but in real terms you don't expect him to stay that long. Particularly if you're buying young and you think you're going to be creating talent that others are going to quite fancy taking off you. And then you get into that cycle of, you know, buy develop sell, buy develop sell. And then there will be fans who say, well, I'm going to make you selling all your best players. But due respect, you know, I've seen people on Twitter go, we can't possibly sell Ganna because he's our best player. And So's Lukman and Vlasic shouldn't have gone either. So they're all opinions but the reality is it comes back down to numbers. It comes down to pounds, shillings and pens and old money. You know, I'm old enough for old money. So I actually think genuinely we need to move away a little bit from saying there's transfer fees and there's wages because it's the cost of ownership that counts. That's what appears in the books, you know. And our problem is that we've been spending more than we earn. Simples, you know. And in spending more than you earn, you make a loss. And if you've got a sugar daddy with deep pockets then maybe you can cover those losses by putting some money into the business, which is what Mr Mishiri has been doing. But in objective terms you still fall foul ultimately if not financial fair play, the Premier League rules, how much you allow to lose over three years and all those sorts of things. And then you can do some accounting practices which you think may help you, you know, by extending the year a little bit to synchronise everything, but then if you're going to have a bad year make it as bad as you can. So I think what we can anticipate is the financial year that's just finished will be really awful. Because if they know it's going to be bad, then make it as bad as you can. But do it in a structured way because all the time you've got your fancy spreadsheet saying where are we on financial fair play. So that's part of it. But ultimately our revenues are too low because our stadium is too small. Our revenues are too low because our stadium is too small and we have a commitment to affordable ticket prices. So we don't get much from there. We've long since, particularly on business matters, talked about commercial performance isn't very good at all. No matter what anybody says, it's not good. We can talk about big percentage increases, but if you take out USM and stuff, we see little bits and pieces of commercial deals being done, you know, sure or whoever, who come and go in a season type of thing. And past commercial performance has been held up by Wurru and the Europa League. So not getting into Europe is a real issue. So you throw all those things into the melting pot and what you call negatives people, maybe others might just say they're being realistic, is you can't spend money you haven't got. So you have to get the money to spend it. Where are you going to get it from? You know, and whether people try and over complicate this sometimes, I really don't know, but it's not rocket science. Where can we get money from beyond what we've just talked about being our normal income? Trading, which is players. So that's core of your life. But everyone has to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Borrowing. And that's it. Where else can you get it from? Without improving. So you've got your non-player commercial performance. You're playing commercial performance, assets, you know, the registrations. And then you've got borrowings and whether the borrowings are from Chinese banks or whether they're from the largest shareholder, they're still borrowings. So it's absolute fact that if somebody does a spreadsheet and says if we're to spend what you just said, whatever, £150 million on players, where's it going to come from? And if people just get their heads spinning trying to figure it out, we don't know what we don't know. And so when we say a certain number of players have gone out on loan, a certain number of players have been released, but actually William, the Jags and the like. Because we don't know, people guess about what these people are earning in salaries. And we just used that example of a £25 million player in an 100 grand a week. Well, I suppose you can say a £50 million might earn 200 grand a week. But whichever way you're doing that, the salary is half the total cost. So actually, if you've got players going out, then it could have a big impact. And you talk about cash or cash flow terms. But I mean, I just expect that we will have challenges, not this season for financial fair play, but certainly next. Everyone's got to remember that it's always three-year rolling cycles. But if you were running a business and you get challenged sometimes by auditors, one of the answers which an auditor can't argue with you is it's a management view. I think something's going to happen when the auditor says prove it. You know, he said, well, it's a management view, which is just what I think. And I'm running my business based on that assumption. And I think we're running the transfer side on the assumption, I think, that if we don't do enough through player trading, Mr Mishir will put his hand in his pocket. That's the gist of it, it's not rocket science, you know. And when people who know what they're talking about on this, people read behind perceived negative headlines, they'll see that's all it says. We either have to sell players, but that doesn't mean sell your best player. I'm like sell five players who come out the academy, you know, sort of thing. Either sell players or let players go out on loan, therefore you get income and reduce cost, hopefully. And then do it that way. And we've talked about this for years. Chelsea have been doing it for, you know, a decade probably now. Oh, they have, yeah. In terms of just, so where we are with this window then? People need to chill out, man. So, I mean, my opinion is that we'll still bring another three in. That's what I think, possibly four. One of them I think will be alone and I think we'll buy another three. I also think we'll probably sell another four. There's going to be some very senior disappointed people if we don't. Of course. You know, particularly Marcel and Marco. Well, what my point was going to be was, sorry, I'm going to. If you were Marco Silva. No, no, if you were, sorry, if you were Farad Meshiri and Marcel Brans hit down, you'd say Farad, listen, we are so far down the road with this building, this team. I think we can get into Europe, but we need this centre forward. Farad Meshiri is surely going to go, or there's going to be a way that everything can generate that money to buy this player that they think is going to take them into Europe. Because otherwise, the money that he's put in so far is almost a waste of time because we're still not achieving it. Quite a lot of it was. Exactly. No, well, it was, it was. But the actual growth of what we've spent, the net rather, what we've spent is actually not as bad as what's made out because obviously Lacarcu, Barclay and Stones pulled some of that fee back, of course. It's free. It's free. It's going one way at the moment and you hope that others are doing the same and that's what you're trying to do. But I just think we're getting so far down the road with this plan with Marcel Brans and you hear the players talking about it. The ultimate plan is we're going that way and we've got a fella who's put his hand in his pocket but it's not proving for him to go. Well, I'm not putting any more in. So deal with it. Because I think it's like climbing so far up a mountain and then going, I can't be asked going that last bit and it's cost you so much to get in. There are conundrums with some of the public pronouncements from Fahad Maishiri, aren't there? Because you have the... You'll never have an issue with money when I'm here. Never have an issue with money as long as I'm here but we need to be sustainable. And that's the balance there. That's the seesaw. And clearly speculate, accumulate and there's just circles we talk about in business matters again and we need to get in Europe. That's a big thing. And getting in Europe means winning things. It does. The hardest way to get in Europe is through the league. Of course. So the League Cup becomes quite high profile in that sense and obviously the FA Cup. But if we can get a good start of the season and confidence flows, blah blah blah there's three or four teams around there fighting for a couple of European places probably and we just need to get in that mix and we're not going to be in that mix if we go into the season relying upon Richie and probably Don perhaps Ziggy to come up with goals again because there's plenty of creativity in and around those midfield players but based on last season, apart from Ziggy to none I really scored many goals. But the old Wendembrer replaced the Lukaku goals yes we have actually in broad terms. We've not got a player who's scored 25 goals I don't think we necessarily need one we need one who's going to score at least 20 league goals and then others who can chip in with 10s and 15s. I mean TCL did what last year, eight or something in the league? Six in the league. Was it only six in the league? So he's got a I'm going for double figures then and Bernard needs to chip in and so on but I think you're right. They have to. The way the director of football has been talking the way the manager has been talking and now that they're clearly seeding the players to say it as well we're expecting this, we're expecting that. Fans, whether they're on social media or not I can't remember who it was I do know who it was but I won't mention it. One of the usual suspects saying I've had enough of this just spend the goddamn money three weeks to go and I will say 21 days and you can say 20 tomorrow 19 and so on because these things will go to the wire because other clubs are trying to do the same thing and I think we've talked about it here in the past how many players do you think are going to come in and how many do you think are going to go out when the windows finished? How many have we shifted in aggregate? All over. In the end I think probably double figures will have gone up the door. So say 10, then 10 will go and it will be six and then eight will have come in. So let's just make the numbers 15 then 10 out, five in, that's 15. Well that's 15 transactions just for us and there's 20 teams in the Premier League. And they all do it don't they? You know which is well you can have him when we've got his reduction at all me and Perth always say a lot of clubs are doing it. You know if you're looking for an indication about what other clubs are doing like United pain through the nose for centre backs the clearest indication of things like that is when the replacements bought isn't it? And that's why we see Delph as being what does that mean to Schneidlin what does it mean to McCarthy and Ghana. Well you would argue that McCarthy was always going to go. He's going anyway. Schneidlin perhaps gave himself a squad chance in the latter part of the last season and Ghana has been a standout player for a number of years but he's the one that people want to give good money for and the club or the manager and the director of football have talked highly of Tom Davis. So they want him to have game time presumably as well. So read between the lines like through the keyhole isn't it the clues are there and see what the clues are about what you think is going to happen and the conclusion has to be if they get success in what they've been trying to do which fundamentally is nurturing football clubs and agents then we will have two or three more players who've got to come in yet. There you go. The message from John chill out if you worried. Are you worried or are you just saying three weeks to go will see what happens. We can't affect it. Now it's worry I've said that this morning to someone at the end of the day we'll talk about it on the 9th of August I suppose when the windows shut but you'll only know at the end of the window and that's the way it is. Look on the bright side. It doesn't run to the end of August anymore. No it does. Well other day but we don't. Life of Brian always look on the bright side. Big thanks to John for joining me. Don't forget to check out Everton Business Matters which John is a part of. I'm excited about the ground images which we will see next week. Let us know in the comments section below. Make sure you subscribe and if you want more videos join us over on page.