'We're a little bit worried...' - Journo shares update on Everton legal issue which 'Kept coming up' in USA

Dan Friedkin’s lawyers appear to have decided they are comfortable with any risk associated with a legal issue which was repeatedly raised by US investors looking at Everton, Matt Slater reports.

Speaking on The Athletic FC podcast on 25 September the journalist said the relationship between Farhad Moshiri and sanctioned former Toffees sponsor Alisher Usmanov was regularly cited as reason not to buy the club, but believes it has now been resolved “fairly comfortably”.

Friedkin’s deal to acquire Moshiri’s 94.1 per cent holding was announced on 23 September having withdrawn from negotiations in July over another legal concern relating to a debt owed to 777 Partners [The Athletic, 20 July], and while the Usmanov worry drew less focus it also appears to have been cleared.

Slater said (10m): “They had a secondary legal risk and that is something that kept coming up in the previous year [to] 18 months whenever I spoke to particularly American investors. ‘What about Everton? Have you thought about Everton?’

“They’d say, ‘Yeah of course we have. We’re a little bit worried though about Farhad Moshiri and his relationship with Alisher Usmanov’, who is of course a very, very wealthy man, he’s an oligarch.

“He’s sanctioned and his companies sponsored Everton, very generously, for much of the Moshiri era, and when he was sanctioned that money was turned off and Everton started to lose large sums of money.

“So there was a little bit of concern around Moshiri and Usmanov because they go back a long way. I think that one has been resolved fairly comfortably. It’s about your appetite for risk and I think Friedkin’s lawyers have clearly decided ‘We’re okay with that risk’.”

Dan Friedkin agrees Everton takeover ahead of John Textor

There has been no shortage of complicating factors getting in the way of a Toffees takeover but it looks like Friedkin has managed to clear the vast majority now [Giulia Bould, 23 September].

The most concerning looked to be the £200million owed to 777, taken over by original lenders A-Cap, thanks to the legal case in the US, but a deal has seemingly been agreed to solve that problem subject to agreement from the court [The Athletic, 23 September].

Premier League ratification is probably the most significant of the final requirements but Friedkin is expected to receive that without issue inside the next two months [Ben Jacobs, 23 September].

Whether the deals done with the various interested parties constitute a clean break in the end or a longer-term arrangement to pay off debt more affordably it will be a relief once the club is no longer linked to the likes of 777 and Usmanov, and the legal uncertainties they may bring.

It emerged earlier this month that Moshiri had been sued by Usmanov in Russia in a development which had reportedly concerned at least one potential buyer due to the potential for proceeds from an Everton deal ending up with the sanctioned billionaire [The Athletic, 10 September].

And while it believed there was little prospect a takeover could subsequently fall foul of sanctions laws thanks to the legal solutions available [Paul Brown, 10 September] those are the sort of headaches Toffees supports would like to be rid of.

In other Everton news, Friedkin has injected more cash into the club already as a warning emerges from Italy.

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