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Businessman Alisher Usmanov has said he is ready to invest in Everton, potentially through an equity stake or by owning the naming rights to the club’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.
Usmanov was business partners with Everton’s majority shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, Red & White Holdings, who bought 14.65 per cent share in Arsenal in 2007, and has been linked with various forms involvement at Goodison Park since Moshiri arrived in February 2016.
Moshiri is also Usmanov’s accountant and partner in another of his companies, USM Holdings, which has sponsored Everton’s training ground, Finch Farm, since 2017.
Now, in an interview with the Financial Times’ Henry Foy, he has admitted that if asked to come on board at Everton, he would do so “with great pleasure”:
“I am thinking about my investment. “I am thinking about my investment in this club... I cannot reject Arsenal. I will not leave them as a fan. But if I join Everton, then I will wear an Everton shirt, because I am a professional.
“They are going to build a new stadium. Why not the USM Arena? It’s not obligatory for me to participate. I could just sponsor them.”
Usmanov also says he is ready to invest in Everton FC, already controlled by his long term business partner, with a potential equity stake or the naming rights to the club’s new stadium
— Henry Foy (@HenryJFoy) January 3, 2020
The Financial Times article also says that a week after the interview, Usmanov brokered the deal which saw Carlo Ancelotti become Everton’s new manager on December 21.
As well as the deal for USM Holdings to sponsor Finch Farm, another of Usmanov’s businesses, Russian telephone operator MegaFon, appears around Goodison on match days and on the sleeves of the players’ training kit.