Louis

C1892 - I agree to an extent but any stadium improvements have to have a sound business plan. I don't believe Kirkby has that at the moment. JD - Thanks for killing the topic ! I personally think poor merchandise sales has a lot to do with Umbro. Whilst the kit sales were a new record high last year, Umbro are simply not a fashionable brand any more. Apart from the kit, nobody wants to wear Umbro branded clothing. I believe that a change to a 'better' brand would invigorate the the merchandise sales. Interesting point about the Bundesliga but at the same time they are still riding on the success of World Cup 2006, a lot of stadiums were revamped for the competition which has allowed the clubs to cash in because of their advanced facilities. You will always get those who believe that Newcastle United will gain more through merchandise sales because they are a one club city. Bill Kenwright said as much this week at a meeting with London Supporters Association. Spurs always seem to have money to spend because they have a large corporate following - we currently have a larger average attendance than Spurs.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/05/...-Kidnapping.php Gunmen kidnapped the younger brother of Nigerian soccer star Joseph Yobo on Saturday, police said. The unidentified men seized Norum Yobo at gunpoint before dawn as he was returning from a party, Rivers State police spokeswoman Rita Inoma-Abbey said. No group claimed has responsibility for the kidnapping and no ransom demand had been made, she said. Joseph Yobo played for Everton soccer club in the British Premier League last season and is a regular fixture on Nigeria's national team, the Super Eagles. Kidnappings are common in the West African country's oil-producing Niger river delta region where militants are agitating for more of the petroleum funds to be spent developing the impoverished region. Attacks on oil industry infrastructure in the past two years have slashed Nigeria's oil output by almost a quarter, helping push worldwide crude prices to historic highs. Kidnappings have mostly ended peacefully after ransom payments, although deaths and injuries have occurred when security forces battle the kidnappers. Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer and is routinely ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

It seems the same every summer now. Moyes wants more cash for players for both transfer and wages. Us, the fans would like the same. The board would also like to offer the high transfer budgets and greater wage budgets. They borrow money from somewhere to be able to cope with the demands as they don't have the cash. This increases debt and I assume the outgoings increase also as we are taking more debt out which would mean that the money will be tighter again the following season. How do we stop the cycle? Should Moyes stop being so demanding? After all without his constant demands the board would have room to maneuver and could possibly pay off chunks of debt and reduce outgoings making a better starting point for the long-term. Just playing devil's advocate.

http://www.evertonfc.com/news/archive/round-signs.html Everton have confirmed that Steve Round has joined the club as assistant manager. The announcement follows several days of negotiations between the Toffees and Round's former employers Newcastle United. Round had been first team coach at the North East club before linking up with David Moyes at Everton. Despite being only 37, he has an impressive record that includes stints with Middlesbrough and England. Everton boss Moyes had been operating without an assistant since Alan Irvine departed for Preston in November of last year. Reserve team manager Andy Holden, first team coach Jimmy Lumsden and goalkeeping coach Chris Woods assisted Moyes in the second half of last season. Round, who began his coaching career at Derby, was at Finch Farm on Friday as he began life at his new club. He exclusively told evertonTV: "Once David asked me, and I met him, it was a definite. "He sold me the club; he sold me the ideas; he sold me how he was moving it forward and how he wanted to take the next step. "I said I would definitely come and here we are."

It could be true.. in an interview with a football magazine, one of the Everton scouts said we are looking at two Spaniards and an Argentine. He also said he recommended some players but the club are preferring to sign Fernandes.

Here's another scout. Josef Csaplár Born :Ostrov nad Ohri Dob: 29th October 1962 He's a former Czech-based manager who had some success in Czech Republic and Poland. Apparently management is not his strong point but he has an eye for talent. He's the one who recommended the defender Suchy. http://tyden.cz/chat-s-osobnosti/josef-csaplar-110/ http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Josef+Csa...lient=firefox-a

Everton have announced the following have been given pro deals at the club: http://www.evertonfc.com/news/archive/futu...s-unveiled.html Jose Baxter Nathan Craig Adam Davies Shane Duffy Adam Forshaw Gerard Kinsella Conor McAleny Lee McArdle Jon Nolan Aristote Nsiala James Wallace I'd never heard of Aristote Nsiala before today!

I don't watch too much Sky Sports to be honest. I'm surprised they don't allow you to watch features over the net like BBC iplayer does, it's not like Sky doesn't have the money. What was he being interviewed for? Are you a member of http://www.escni.co.uk yet ?

Last week saw the publication of the Deloitte Annual review of Football Finance. This is a report produced on the state of finances in the English game and also features comparisons with other European Leagues. Anyone who is interested can find more information on the Deloitte website. The report draws general conclusions given the overall state of the English game and makes suggestions based on the findings therein. Whilst the material is skewed towards the Premier League given that is where most of the money is, lessons still exist for the Irish game. The cost and effect of wages are a key section in the report. The Premier League saw double digit wage inflation in 2006/07 and this saw a fall in operating profits, despite overall revenue increase. The report notes that “Again we appear to be seeing game theory in action. A shared will, and action, individually by all the clubs to limit wages growth would deliver increased profitability for all, but the pursuit of on-pitch success and the intense competitive desire to gain an edge means clubs continue to invest heavily in their playing squads and bid the market up, to the detriment of all clubs’ finances and the benefit of players and their agents.” Supporters of Irish clubs can observe the same process in operation in the domestic game. The move to full time football since 2000 has seen rapid wage inflation whilst the clubs have struggled to impose cost controls. It is obvious that if all clubs set to strict wage budgets then player wages would be forced to adapt to fit within these. However clubs will fall into the classic game theory error and thus break from optimum strategy, thus leaving everyone worse off in the long run. Whilst the League has sought to impose a wage cap of around 65%, the clubs must collectively come to a decision to improve the game as a whole. Crowds aren’t getting any bigger, the money coming through the gate is not increasing significantly and yet costs continue to spiral, primarily into the pockets of players. Bohs losing €1.4m last year, Cork budgeting to lose €1m this year and even Sligo losing nearly €180,000 in the last financial year. Remember it was a debt equivalent to Sligo’s that nearly put Derry City out of existence. People will object that you must “speculate to accumulate”, but at what cost? The cumulative net debt of the clubs in the English Championship was £289m at the end of 2006/07. The report concludes that the spiralling wage inflation means that the realistically most Championship clubs will only reduce this debt by promotion to the Premier League of the injection of new equity from the club owner. The conclusion is that whatever the revenue increases are, this will be swallowed up as the clubs fail to limit wages and other costs. On the other hand the German Bundesliga is held up as the shining light in respect of the big Leagues within Europe. The state of the art facilities include designated standing areas, and clubs have kept ticket prices relatively low. As a result, the Bundesliga once again has the highest average attendances in Europe and German club revenues have increased strongly with a new broadcasting deal, moving the league into second place behind the Premier League in revenue terms. Again, the report notes “In addition, Germany is now the most profitable league in Europe, with an operating margin of 18%, three times that of the Premier League. The German licensing system clearly influences clubs’ performance, but it is curious to compare the profit performance in Germany, where individuals are prevented from owning clubs, with that of the English clubs.” Again, critics may retort that profits don’t matter, that performances on the pitch are what counts. The Bundesliga clubs may no longer regularly feature in the last four of the Champions League, but this may in fact make it a even more critical model for Irish club football to adopt. The wage/turnover ration in the Bundesliga currently stands at 45%, whereas the figures for the Premier League and Championship currently stand at 62% and 79% repectively. The figures for the domestic game don’t make pretty reading, with the stand out figure was one club which were spending more than 100% of turnover on wages. To repeat that again, it means that every single penny which the club received, and more, went to pay wages, irrespective of other costs such as insurance, logistics, admin staff etc. The benefits for the League for instituting cost controls and seeking to make an operating club are obvious. To be blunt about this, most of the players are going nowhere. We may lose a few of the top players to the England and Scotland, but that would happen even with no controls. The rest of the players are limited by their options. Capping your wage costs allows money to spent elsewhere, on club promotion and marketing, on youth development, on infrastructural improvement. All these things are at the bottom of the barrel at the money, with “strengthening the squad” the main priority. However these priorities are equally as improvement for the long term health of the club. This is one of the factors which attracts people to games. We have improved the pitches, we have improved the quality of football on offer. There is now a steady stream of live League games available for the casual fan to watch (tonight included), as well as the fantastic MNS highlights package. However this has not yet delivered the improvements in attendance which the games deserve, and need. More finance must be directed to off the field attractions, to make the package more and more attractive to potential new support. The same questions could be directed to any club across the country. If you bring your family to the match, is it worth it? Will they be able to see the game? What is the selection of food like? Are healthy options available? Is there a family section to sit in? What are the toilet facilities like? Does the club shop have items you want to buy, and are they in stock? These are only a few of the questions clubs need to start asking themselves, and questions that fans need to start demanding answers for. People are probably reading this and arguing that people will only watch a winning team. I ask people to stop and think. Derry played Cork on Sunday, a clash of probably the two best supported sides in the country and there will be less than 5000 at the game. Nowhere near enough people are watching winning teams, never mind losing ones.

Everton denied it in the Echo recently

19yr old Ireland u-21 right back has been linked with us, I don't know much about him and nothing has been in the papers as far as I an see. He plays for Sligo Rovers and is described on their website as an 'outstanding prospect'. No harm in giving him a trial I suppose.

It was the Daily Post who said they were linked in the first place! Liverpool Daily Post So did the Echo; Liverpool Echo

Full literature: http://www.scribd.com/word/full/3681773?ac...gl1r866tvic35dy

Deja vu

He has potential. There's no doubt about it, you don't go from being an Argentina international to a bad player in such a short time. It's a risk, sometimes they pay off sometimes they don't. He'd want serious money though!

http://blogs.notw.co.uk/sport/2008/06/everton-fans-re.html notw reporting it

All in here: http://kassiesa.com/uefafiles/uefadirect/u...rect75-0807.pdf Released today actually! On page 23 you'll see that Moyes' brother has been granted a license to become an agent.

Originally I was in favour of Kirkby! I'd be happy with a redeveloped Goodison Park as it keeps heritage especially if it could be done to a standard like Croke Park. I also like the idea of Scotland Road

Yes and no. There's been things drawn up but they are just basic sketches. HOK Sport, the company who designed Wembley, Emirates and Croke Park have all said it can fit a 50,000+ stadium. The guy who planned St. James Park redevelopment said it can fit a 75,000+ stadium with the right contingency plans in place. Everton say it can cope with 32,000 stadium. A copy of the full HOK Report has been sent to the GONW and Secretary of State, but only the conclusion has been released on the internet so far. Some related links: http://www.keioc.net/index.php?page=scotland-road http://www.keioc.net/index.php?page=hok-report http://www.scribd.com/doc/2277430/Scotland-Road http://www.scribd.com/doc/2261251/KEIOC-Plan-C-Loop

According to Kenwright plan B is and always has been Goodison Park yet the planning documents have dismissed Goodison Park and Scotland Road as options. Interestingly, just before the Kirkby option shown it's ugly head, the board were actually seriously considering redeveloping Goodison. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/everton-fc/...00252-14956573/

Apparently it didn't take place at Goodison and it was a 'secret meeting'. I think it may have been about GONW delaying the decision for the stadium

Shareholders are calling for a EGM to discuss the stadium issues in greater detail. I'll try and get hold of the accompanying literature.

I don't know what the agenda was, just that there was a meeting this evening.

The Everton board are currently in a meeting that was quickly arranged. It began at 5:30pm. Something's going on! What could it be?

Everton's Irish defender Darren Dennehy has just joined Cardiff on a three year deal. Everton offered him a one year extension on a lower wage which was rejected. He's the 6ft 5 one! Good luck to him anyway.