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There's been something deeply questionable all along about the outfit called '777', the very worst manifestation of the chancers now alighting on British football, picking over what they have seen as the carcass of Everton.
The club have become a car crash under the tenure of British Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri – one of the most inept proprietors to have darkened the doors of our game – and it was his desperate wish to cash out which brought the Miami-based investment fund and its chief executive, Josh Wander, to Goodison's doorstep, in his trademark baseball cap.
Wander sometimes discusses himself in the third person, which is never a good sign. 'Is there anyone in the world that's been more serious about buying football clubs in history than Josh Wander?' he said, a few months back, having already picked up six distressed sides, which have certainly not flourished under his ownership.
Wander said that he saw 'his' clubs becoming football's equivalent of Tesco, selling fans every kind of financial product imaginable because it will have the team's name plastered across it.
'One day we're not selling hot dogs and beers to our customers; we're selling insurance or financial services or whatever,' he said. Fans were so obsessive that 'they want to be monetised,' he observed.
Josh Wander and 777 Partners should have been nowhere near Goodison Park. It's a measure of the dark place Everton are in that some supporters have seen them as saviours
Farhad Moshiri's desperate wish to cash out from Goodison brought 777 circling like sharks
777 was accused last Friday of pledging £279million of cash which was not theirs, did not exist, or belonged to someone else - and Everton's name was dragged into the lawsuit
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It's a measure of the very dark place Everton have found themselves in that some supporters have actually viewed Wander and his 777 business partner, Steven Pasko, as saviours - and that questioning their legitimacy has not been universally popular.
777 launched a Merseyside PR drive, with Wander doing some of the meeting and greeting. They found £200million to help Everton pay their creditors, and generally inserted themselves at the table of one of Britain's grandest, proudest old clubs.
When 777 was brought before a New York courtroom last Friday, accused by two London-based asset management companies of pledging $350million (£279million) of cash which was either not theirs, did not exist, or had been promised to someone else, Everton's name appeared within the 82-page legal petition.
The club was 'the latest shiny object of Wander's fraudulent scheme,' the US District Court was told. Another financial entity had been set up to temporarily settle 777's imminent financial obligations - like a game of 'Whac-A-Mole,' the papers said, 'to avoid the entire scheme from being laid bare in public.' Wander and Pasko were 'operating a giant shell game at best, and an outright Ponzi scheme at worst.'
Mail Sport's IAN HERBERT
777 have not commented on that civil case, for which they have not, as yet, filed a defence. The case has not been tested in that court of law. But senior British police officers told Mail Sport this week that the financial complexities behind an attempted 777 takeover at Everton demonstrated the huge challenge the Premier League faces in establishing which would-be owners should be allow into the sport.
'It's something that probably requires the forensic financial analysis to be outsourced to those with that level of detection and expertise,' one officer said. 'It seems like it is beyond any in-house team.'
Of course, Everton are not the first the only club which prospective foreign buyers have circled, looking for a foothold in the game and a slice of the £6.7billion four-year TV which the Premier League announced in December 2023. Those TV riches have brought hundreds looking for rich pickings.
The league spent six months considering whether 777 were fit to own Everton before imposing stringent takeover conditions in March, which forced the Americans to prove they had the money they claimed to have. The league – and Everton – are still waiting.
777 have lingered at Goodison Park, swanning around the directors' box for over a year
Their ownership track record is abysmal. Genoa had to crowd-fund for a £4m training ground
Wages have been going unpaid at Standard Liege, leading to a transfer ban on the Belgians
That Wander has entered the picture and been permitted to linger on the Everton scene for so long is testament to the fact that Moshiri's attempts to sell the club have been just as disastrous as his attempts to run it – with two Premier League sanctions totalling an eight-point deduction for breaching spending rules this season.
Moshiri, who took control in 2016, burnt through £750million to no material effect before his Putin-supporting business associate Alisher Usmanov was sanctioned, after Russia invaded Ukraine, and the cash dried up.
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When he decided to sell, some serious buyers expressed interest. They included a
