Everton's Owners Built the Floor and Now Want to Sell the House

The Friedkin Group says it has laid a foundation, and Everton supporters are entitled to ask what was supposed to be built on it. Not yet two years into its ownership, TFG is looking at selling a controlling stake, having bought the club in 2024 for a price reported to be above £400m. The statement is tidy and the logic is defensible. The timing, following a summer that cost the owners plenty of goodwill, is what gives it an edge.

What the owners say they have done

TFG's argument is about stability. Its statement says the group arrived as "custodians" of a club facing "significant financial uncertainty". The first task, it says, was to supply steadiness, money and backing, including help getting the "long-promised stadium" finished. With that "foundation now safely in place", TFG argues, a new phase can begin.

The wording deserves care. TFG is not announcing a sale. It describes a search for "new investment options" that could include selling a controlling interest, and says it will only listen to approaches from parties it strongly believes are suitable stewards. Nothing in the statement binds TFG to sell, and nothing names a buyer or a price.

The group also promised that its aims would not shift while this plays out: backing the club on the pitch and continuing to contribute to the communities around it.

A fair claim, with a footnote

Few people dispute the stability argument. Rachel Brown-Finnis, the former Everton goalkeeper, told 5 Live Breakfast that TFG "stabilised the club" at a time of deep financial doubt. She called the news "a bit of a shock", yet felt that a sale tomorrow would still leave Everton in a far healthier state than the owners found it.

BBC chief football writer Phil McNulty lands in a similar place. TFG bought 99.5% of the club from Farhad Moshiri in 2024, after Everton had slid into financial crisis. Since then, McNulty writes, the owners have steadied the finances and made the club appealing to prospective buyers.

The footnote sits right alongside. McNulty points out that the stadium move was effectively complete before the takeover. That does not erase what TFG contributed, but it narrows the claim: the owners who say they helped deliver the ground inherited a project that was close to done. In his view, the stability is the main achievement of what he calls an "unspectacular tenure".

The summer that changed the mood

The sale news arrives against recent history that is hard to ignore. TFG's leadership faced scrutiny during the summer window, and the sharpest flashpoint was Harrison Armstrong, the England Under-19 midfielder. Supporters were furious to learn that Everton had agreed to a £40m offer from Nottingham Forest for him. Everton ultimately backed out, but the goodwill it cost was not recovered.

Irritation grew when Beto then left for Fiorentina soon afterwards. By the BBC's count, that reduced the Toffees to a single recognisable striker, the 23-year-old Frenchman Thierno Barry. McNulty adds that a "botched" deadline day left David Moyes with only 18 senior outfield players, and that Iliman Ndiaye's £65m move to Manchester City reinforced the picture of a careful approach to the market.

Analysis: those facts point to a club that sold well and replaced thinly. Each departure can be defended in isolation. Supporters, though, judge the window as a whole, and this one left Moyes short in attack. McNulty reads the overall approach as a sign of "limited ambition" from TFG, which is his judgement rather than an established fact.

The absentee-owner problem

The other recurring complaint is about presence. In September, Moyes said he had never met or spoken to Dan Friedkin, who lives in Houston, since coming back as manager in January 2025. McNulty adds that Friedkin has not been to an Everton match in the 21 months since that reappointment, and that this fed a belief among fans that TFG were absentee owners in all but name.

Daily management, according to the report, sits with Friedkin's son-in-law Rishi Majithia, working alongside chief executive Angus Kinnear. That is a common enough arrangement for a modern owner. It only becomes a problem when results or recruitment go wrong and supporters cannot tell who answers for it at the top.

McNulty also sets Everton against AS Roma, the other club in the TFG portfolio. He portrays Roma as the more hands-on project, and notes that they enjoy extra income from Champions League football. The comparison is his, and it stings: the same owners, he implies, act differently where the rewards are bigger.

What the next owner inherits

If this process ends in a sale, the buyer gets a club on firmer financial ground than the one Moshiri handed over. Brown-Finnis says fans have a stadium to be "crazily proud of" that should earn money commercially. Those are the assets TFG will lean on in any negotiation.

Analysis: the harder question for a buyer is less the balance sheet than the trust deficit. Everton are seventh in the Premier League after seven matches, a respectable position that sits awkwardly beside a squad that looks thin up front. A new controlling owner would take on settled finances and a fanbase that has just sat through a window it disliked.

Brown-Finnis expressed her hope simply: that due diligence is done, and that incoming owners want to push Everton ahead, since supporters have endured too long in a financially turbulent era. It is a modest request, and given the club's recent past, a revealing one. Supporters are not asking for a spectacular owner. They are asking for a visible one.

Research: This article uses the archived evidence supplied for this story. Story inspiration: BBC Sport's original report.