Prospective Everton owner John Textor has slammed Financial Fair Play, insisting that the system is a “fraud” which just protects clubs with global brands such as the Blues’ neighbours Liverpool. Textor, who owns a 45% stake in Crystal Palace, is in takeover talks with Everton’s wantaway majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri and is the fifth prospective buyer since 2022 after periods of exclusivity with the Kaminski Group, MSP Capital, 777 Partners and the Friedkin Group all failed to strike a deal.
The 58-year-old Missouri-born digital media and entertainment mogul, nicknamed Hollywood’s Virtual Reality Guru, is also the owner of football clubs in France (Olympique Lyonnais); Belgium (RWD Molenbeek) and Brazil (Botafogo).
It was while representing the latter in Rio de Janeiro that he made his damning speech against the structure of the game that in theory was brought in to protect clubs from economic strife but in the eyes of many, including him, just reinforces the strength of those with the greatest resources.
Everton (twice, totalling eight points deducted) and Nottingham Forest (four points deducted) – branded “small clubs” by Premier League chief executive Richard Masters at a Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing in January were both given sporting sanctions last season for breaching PSR rules but this week Chelsea – who have lavished over a billion pounds on transfers since Todd Boehly bought the club from Roman Abramovich in 2022 – were cleared by the Premier League for the sale of two hotels to a sister company to keep them compliant with profit and sustainability rules.
Textor said: “Let’s start with a definition of Financial Fair Play. That is not a word that people should be throwing around without maintaining consistency with that phrase around the rest of the globe because it sounds like such an obvious thing financial fair play.
“Everyone would want fair play. That’s not what the expression means in Europe.
“If you go to my website you’ll see I give a speech about this. The term Financial Fair Play is a fraud.
“The reason it’s a fraud is that it’s not fair at all. It says that teams can only spend 75% of their revenues on player salaries and it’s a rule, in Europe, that is designed to allow the big teams with their global brands, the Liverpools, the Manchester Uniteds, they just get to spend more money – it’s not fair at all.
“Crystal Palace has to play against Manchester United and Manchester United is allowed to just spend more on the players. No salary cap, no parity financially, it is not financial fair play, it’s unfair.”
