In mid-May last year Everton FC was fighting for its life in the world’s richest football league. The nine-times English champions had just lost by three goals to nil against Manchester City, putting them at risk of relegation. Things were looking bleak.
Across the Atlantic, however, a group of Miami investors drawn to sports and high stakes business bets fuelled by other people’s money saw something else: opportunity. To the men behind 777 Partners, the lossmaking club looked like a lottery ticket that, if it paid out, could solve problems elsewhere in their operation.
Senior executives at the firm and its football investment arm gathered that month to debate a bid for Everton, a far bigger prize than the other teams 777 had snapped up in Italy, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain and Australia.