Spirit of St. Louis Blues Could Land In Liverpool Yet

Utahan Dave Checketts did little to extinguish the flames that he'd be interested in taking over a club like Everton when he was in London this weekend.He suggested to listeners of BBC Radio Five Live that he may be looking to invest in an English Premier League club in the future. The SCP Worldwide founder, owner of St. Louis Blues (NHL) and Real Salt Lake (MLS) was rumoured to have looked at the club earlier this year among others. Rumours first surfaced after Checketts watched Everton beat the MLS All Stars at Rio Tinto Stadium, a stadium he had overseen the development of.

Checketts' St. Louis Blues are also looking for a lead investor but he stated that he may look into investing into a Premier League club again in the future. Last year Checketts was close to buying St. Louis Rams (NFL) with Dallas banker Gerald Ford and St. Louisan Andy Taylor. Whether they'd be willing to rekindle their partnership for an Everton buyout is anyone's guess.

When speaking about the prospects of an American owning an English football club at a recent Leaders in Football conference, he said: "Most Americans have seen buying English Premier League clubs as an investment,". “They understand the passion that exists for football here and see this as an investment opportunity to invest in and then to exit from. They see it strictly that way. Like most American sports owners they [also] think they are going to do a great job, win many championship and be a big hero, but in many cases - see Liverpool - it does not work out."

He also said "We like the Premier League, we have friends that are owners here, at some point we'd like to participate." When asked to clarify what he said, he stated "It means we will be a bidder [on clubs] in the future".

Could it work out for the Republican Mormon Checketts at Everton?

Probably not. Evertonians will in all likelihood have to wait longer before they see some investment in the club. It's something they're used to.

The Telegraph's Mihir Bose once reported that two of Everton's current owners in Bill Kenwright and Jon Woods have previously seen off investment from Paul Gregg and City bankers and lost a CEO because they didn't want to dilute their control. Gregg sold his shareholding to Robert Earl best known for his Planet Hollywood chain and Earl's representative stated that Earl "contributed financially by providing personal guarantees" but is not interested in investing into Everton's infrastructure, ironically the man he replaced was set to move the club to a riverside arena albeit in controversial circumstances.

Everton are known to struggle to raise finance for new players and in recent years have relied on borrowing against future television revenue to pay off a mortgage arranged the year before usually leaving enough money to cover player wage increase demands and sometimes player transfer fee. The Everton board resorted to securing a 25 year £30m (repaying £58m) loan secured against Goodison Park and paid for by future season ticket sales in 2002 and any new investor would not be able to repay this early without incurring a penalty.

Former Atlanta Spirit Chief Executive Bernie Mullin, himself an Evertonian has hinted there are investment developments going on behinds the scenes at Everton. Mullin states that biggest stumbling bock is the attention that Goodison Park needs. Mullin himself describes it as "primitive". Goodison Park is one of the most historic venues in the world and has hosted World Cup games and more top-flight games than any other English stadium. Unfortunately it has fallen behind other stadiums in terms of facilities on offer in recent years as all incoming Everton revenue has been invested in staff wages and transfer fees. In short, Everton need a Fergus McCann, the former Celtic Managing Director type-figure to come on board and improve the stadium facilities on offer at Everton.

The Everton board have tried to increase corporate hospitality facilities in the form of relocating to a new stadium in Kirkby outside of Liverpool but it was met with a vitriolic response from fans before being dashed three years after it was first announced after closer inspection from the UK Government. For now the Everton board have hopes of building a four-storey building which will serve as a temporary solution for hospitality. The planning application says that it is expected to be in use for 5-7 years.

Whether Everton would benefit from new ownership is open to debate, financially at least. The soon to be introduced UEFA Fair play rulings that are aimed at making club's self sufficient could be the panacea to the Toffee's investment woes alternatively it could mean more of the same for the club just without European competitions. The Toffee's CEO Robert Elstone is equally unsure of the challenge that lays ahead but has stressed it could benefit Everton in the long-run.