The Friedkin Group must learn from Farhad Moshiri’s mistakes at Everton and not ignore them

In ancient Rome, statues of bad emperors were quickly torn down after they were usurped.

Their likeness could be hacked from marble pillars, their statements canceled and their names removed from public records.

The aim was damnatio memoriae: a condemnation of memory.

Today a regime change finally took place at Everton. The Friedkin Group (TFG) has expanded its own empire from the Eternal City that once ruled the world to the shores of the royal blue Mersey.

Given the relief and hope at their arrival, it might be tempting for Everton fans to attempt a modern Damnatio Memoriae, a scorched earth erasing the past.

The difficulties of the last nine years under Farhad Moshiri have been such that those associated with the club may prefer to forget it all, forget everything and concentrate on the future.

Of course, Moshiri’s major achievement – the shiny new Bramley Moore Dock stadium, which opens next season – will be appreciated, but fans won’t want to dwell on other things he oversaw in terms of actual football, from the hasty, overspending and clumsy decisions and the erosion of the club’s pragmatic reputation led to a series of unsuitable managers and ultimately a series of relegation battles and point deductions.

Our new home from the roof of the Royal Liver Building 🤩 pic.twitter.com/wnjdu54MO8

— Everton Stadium (@EvertonStadium) December 6, 2024

Added to this is a divide between the former board and fans, as well as a gap in overall leadership and accountability that has persisted since the departure of the previous chief executive 18 months ago. It has become the norm for Everton to be on the fringes of the Premier League and perhaps even exist had Moshiri been able to sell to his previous preferred bidder, 777 Partners.

Dan Friedkin’s group now runs Goodison (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

It’s not hard to see why fans want to move on.

But it is important that everyone associated with the club tries to look objectively at the last nine years and learn from them, difficult as it may be. Because there are too many lessons that can be ignored and that can just as easily become repeat mistakes.

Perhaps the first is not to get carried away by the savior syndrome. By all means, be pleased with the arrival of new Guardians, but where someone like Moshiri was once prayed for, those who value this grand old club must give TFG a kind but thoughtful review.

While Moshiri’s early declarations of intent in the form of contractual commitments and announcements of becoming a premier member of football’s Northwest “Hollywood” whetted an appetite for a bright future, they ultimately led to waste and dysfunction.

The club failed to make the sensible, low-profile, structural decisions around its football staff and slowly sank the sturdy ship built during the David Moyes era. For their first ever director of football, they hired Steve Walsh, a chief scout for surprise title winners Leicester City, based on confused thinking. From then on, not much improved (as she did Hiring a suitable football director, Marcel Brands, was not given the necessary power.

Too often it seemed that way, Moshiri did But you’re just listening to the wrong people. If that was a tacit admission that he was not an expert in football business and needed advice, that in itself was not a problem. It is the quality of the advice he sought that led to problems.

A look at the Friedkins’ time in Rome shows that they faced a challenging learning curve in their first step into top-level football. Their pockets are deep, but their decision making was a coincidence.

That doesn’t have to be a problem for Everton as long as TFG are smart enough to accept what they did wrong, such as giving Daniele De Rossi a three-year contract before leaving the Roma coach after just four games in the new Serie A -Season dismisses his replacement, Ivan Juric, after twelve games.

Roma fans were quick to express their displeasure with the Friedkins (Antonietta Baldassarre/Insidefoto/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Everton fans know all too well the consequences of chaotic managerial sackings due to flawed appointments.

The difficult start to Roma’s season has driven a wedge between TFG and the club’s fans, which is only now easing with the more sensible signing of Claudio Ranieri for the remainder of the season ahead of the experienced former Leicester City coach’s move to a senior and advisory role – presumably in the search for his successor.

They are expected to announce their new chief executive following the resignation of Lina Souloukou, who has since been linked with the role at Everton because of her involvement in the De Rossi debacle that sparked those fan protests.

Some fans felt their club had become too corporate, too cold and too uncommunicative.

What’s promising is that their requests for more dialogue appear to have been heeded: technical director Florent Ghisolfi and his colleagues have spoken more frequently in recent weeks, providing more context for decision-making.

The Friedkins only need to look at Moshiri’s communications strategy to get a further idea of ​​what not to do.

Opening yourself up to scrutiny, engaging with stakeholders and striving for transparency may not be the easiest part of the routine as the owner of a multi-billion dollar sports club, but it can increase the chances of success by bringing everyone along for the ride.

Worried, success-hungry and emotionally drained Evertonians will, in turn, show them nothing but goodwill today. They know that success cannot happen overnight, and some may resist ostentatious quick-fix attempts, such as immediately appointing a new “big name” manager. You were there, wearing the t-shirt and watching it shrink and fall apart in the wash.

It is encouraging to read the words of new chief executive Marc Watts, who speaks of “strengthening the men’s first team squad through thoughtful and strategic investment”. Reading between the lines of his open letter to his supporters, he seems to accept that meaningful and lasting progress cannot be achieved overnight. Still, there will be legitimate excitement about this new departure, which insiders say is the “best-case scenario.”

However, as all eyes turn to the future, fans and owners must resist the temptation to forget the past.

You don’t have to sift through centuries of rubble to find evidence of Everton’s chaotic decline. They have already begun consolidating the club’s heavy debts and the legacy of Moshiri’s mistakes will be their legacy, just as his crowning success on the waterfront must have been a major factor in convincing them to buy the club.

Truly understanding what has gone wrong since 2016 requires patience and juggling complexity, but for the Friedkins it is crucial.

The opportunity to build something bigger and even better requires, first, that history is not ignored.

(Top photo: Everton’s loyal fan base enjoying the new era. Alex Livesey/Getty Images)