Ancelotti insists Everton do not have to ‘sell to buy’ players this summer

Much has been made of Everton’s financial situation with the losses the club has incurred in the last couple of years, paired with the large sums of money that are being invested in the new stadium project at the Bramley Moore docks.

Speaking ahead of today’s game at Aston Villa, manager Carlo Ancelotti dismissed any concerns that the Premier League or the Football Association could look to investigate the Toffees for breaking Financial Fair Play regulations, and instead turned the tables on the league for failing so far to come down hard on the rogue six clubs that attempted to break way to form a European Super League.

Per FFP, a club can only sustain up to £105 million in losses in a rolling three-year period before facing sanctions from the game’s governing body in England. For Everton, the picture has been somewhat clouded with new sponsorships coming in, additional investments in the pre-work for the new stadium, as well as losses attributed to COVID-19 which resulted in reduced earnings with no fans allowed in stadiums.

Everton’s losses over the last three years were £13.1m (2017-18), £111.8m (2018-19) and £139.9m (2019-20), adding up to £264.8m. Of that, £67.3m is directly attributed to COVID-19, and £54m can be capitalized for the new stadium, leaving the total losses at about £143.5m. While this number is higher than the £105 million mark, Ancelotti is not worried that this will hamper his and Marcel Brands efforts in bringing in some new talent to Goodison Park over the summer.

“The Premier League has to solve different problems than the financial fair play of Everton. For the fact that six teams wanted to go in the Super League, first of all they have to take care of this and then, maybe, they can have a look at Everton. But we are going to look at ourselves.

“If they looked at us, with the problem they had with the top six that wanted to join the Super League, that would be funny. Of course we will take care of our financial aspect but we can buy without selling players this summer for sure. We’re all agreed on the plan we have to improve the squad and there is no doubt we are totally focused on this. We are totally agreed, from the manager, the club and the technical director, Marcel Brands.”

Ancelotti’s confidence does seem to indicate that there might be some new sponsorship on the way, as well as some creative accounting taking place, that will limit the liability the club is going to take. Qualifying for Europe would go a long way towards bringing in new revenues in the form of sponsors, television money as well as gate receipts as COVID restrictions continue to get lifted as we return to a new normal.