Everton get takeover boost after John Textor’s rousing message and issue 777 cleared

Everton “avoided a big problem” by not being taken over by John Textor’s 777 Partners, a football investor keen to compete for titles rather than cut costs and restore Botafogo pride.

That’s the verdict of Brazilian football journalist Rodrigo Calvozzo, who witnessed the contrasting fortunes of 777’s Vasco da Gama and Textor’s Botafogo in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro. Everton announced on 15 September that 777 Partners had signed an agreement with majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri to acquire its entire 94.1% stake in the club and that closing of the deal was expected to take place in the fourth quarter of 2023.

However, after eight and a half months, the Miami-based private equity firm, which has been dogged by payment problems at the clubs it owns and hit by legal challenges, has failed to get the go-ahead for the acquisition by five Premier League board members as the deal to buy the shares closed on May 31, with Everton confirming that Moshiri is now evaluating all options regarding future ownership in a club statement. A week before, Textor, who also owns 90% of Botafogo, owns a controlling stake in Olympique Lyonnais and RWD Molenbeek plus a 45% minority stake in Crystal Palace, declared his interest in buying Everton and has now been described as the “frontage”. -runner’ to complete a takeover by Sky Sports.

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For all the uncertainty and struggles Evertonians have been through, Calvozzo believes events could work out well for their club if they land Textor rather than his much-maligned compatriots, who have spent most of the 2023/24 season without to get business across the line. He told the ECHO: “Given the experience we’ve seen at Vasco, I’d say Everton have escaped a big problem.

“777 was removed from the sporting management of Vasco through legal action and the club had to take over the management of the club. This was greatly celebrated among the fans, although they know that until another company comes forward to invest, the team will not be able to dream of big wins.

“Textor is an experienced investor and certainly has the ability to run a club like Everton. He recently said that he does not want to continue with Crystal Palace because he wants to compete for titles but with Everton it is possible to achieve his goal.

“For Botafogo fans, the concern is that their best players could go to the English club. However, if Textor knows how to balance the investments, there probably won’t be any complaints from Botafogo supporters.”

Everton have suffered two separate points deductions this season for breaching PSR rules, but for all the Blues’ well-documented financial problems, Botafogo were arguably in a weaker position when Textor came in, but he has revived their fortunes with his approach practice. Calvozzo said: “Textor is highly admired among Botafogo fans. Despite being one of the most important clubs in the history of Brazilian football, the team was facing administrative chaos and was in the Second Division with no expectations of improvement when he arrived.

“Textor, in addition to investing financially in the team, restored the self-esteem of the fans who began to believe that it was possible to live a new era. In addition to marketing actions, Textor himself often attended fan parties and celebrations in person, watching the matches from the stands, which brought him even closer to the fans.

“Botafogo has improved a lot compared to what he experienced before his arrival. It is true that the situation was so bad that any small advance would be a great achievement.

“However, this went further. The club narrowly missed out on winning the Brazilian championship last year and returned to the Copa Libertadores (the South American equivalent of the Champions League) after many years.

“The great merit of the Textor management is finding good players who are not idols. Botafogo has no known players except for Diego Costa in 2023, but they have managed to find through their scouts sportsmen who have given good results in competitions.”

In his passionate approach, Textor is more akin to the fans in the stands than Everton’s current majority shareholder Moshiri, and in April he was convicted by Brazil’s top sports court of ignoring orders to provide evidence to support his match-fixing claims of matches after he shouted at the country’s football boss in a furious, insult-filled rant on live television earlier this season. Calvozzo admits that such an approach has made the Missouri-born tycoon a polarizing figure.

He said: “Textor has stated several times that he initially made an investment but that Brazilian football made him fall in love. Apparently these claims are sincere and not just marketing stunts, so that made it much easier for them to reach out to fans.

“This was not well received by the press. More traditional professionals think they shouldn’t behave this way, but the results place these journalists far from the reality lived at the club.

“As for the outburst over the refereeing decisions, many understand that it was rushed and also an overreaction. He promised to present evidence that there was manipulation of the results, but so far, he has only shown studies indicating the possibility by artificial intelligence, which was considered inconsistent.

“Some managers at other clubs wanted him to suffer more severe punishment, but that didn’t happen, but it left him somewhat isolated in terms of the league’s common decisions.”

Given the decades-long flow of top football talent from Brazil to Europe, there is concern among Botafogo fans that their team – along with Textor’s other acquisitions – could eventually become a feeder club for Everton, if it was completed on the takeover at Goodison Park? Calvozzo said: “The theme is that these groups could make Brazilian football just a supplier of players for European clubs, as was the case between Botafogo and Lyon.

“Even so, teams that were facing serious financial problems found in this model a solution to prevent the closure of clubs, as was the case with Vasco, Botafogo and Cruzeiro, with Ronaldo. Botafogo’s model is the opposite of 777 and Ronaldo, who has come under fire for not being close to the fans, barely attending matches and putting former Corinthians and Internacional players in charge of the team before selling his package to a man of Brazilian business named. Pedro Lourenço.

“Textor’s proximity to the fans made his job much easier. Unlike these other examples, which were closed and started to be seen as problems and not solutions for Vasco and Cruzeiro.”