Elstone: It’s good not to have the bank manager looking over your shoulder every day

Everton Chief Executive Officer Robert Elstone has said that the club will be posting some very healthy accounts this year due to increased TV revenue and league placings in Roberto Martinez first season as manager.

Speaking to Greg O’Keefe in the Liverpool Echo Elstone says that the club no longer have to “Squeeze the orange dry” when trying to support the manager to bring new players to the club and they are even investing £2.5m in and around Goodison Park during the close season.  It is unknown whether the club are investing in new lawnmowers.

“I spoke at the general meeting about how the financial landscape has changed with the TV deal,” he says. “We will be publishing some very healthy numbers and I’m sure that’s not just peculiar to us, although a fifth-place finish and a good live game return meant we’ve done well.

“It’s also given us some choices.

“We’re investing around £2.5m in Goodison around the close season. On floodlights, fan-related facilities, lounges and media facilities.

“There are plans to extend Finch Farm. Roberto has mentioned the players’ accommodation which we are pushing.

“We’ve never had that choice in the past because we used to squeeze the orange so hard in terms of supporting the manager in buying players that it was bone dry by the time it comes back to me.

“It’s less so now – not to say we’d never prioritise supporting Roberto and the first team.

“Now we can support matchday activities, or our marketing and community work. We have that option now.

“There’s two more years of the current TV deal and the landscape looks rosy beyond that too. It’s good not to have the bank manager looking over your shoulder every day – that’s how we probably were but not now.

“When you get £80m a season from Sky, there’s a temptation to get your feet on the table and puff on a cigar but that’s just not the Everton way.”

He may look back with warmth on the 2013/14 season but Elstone’s eyes are now firmly fixed on the future of the club he has helped lead for the last five years.

“Looking forward, we have the plans for Finch Farm and an academy blessed with a really promising crop of young players,” he says.

“Their emergence will be interesting to see and we hope that promise is fulfilled.

“We won’t ever think we’ve arrived at where we’re trying to get to though. We’re not perfect. There’s no cockiness or arrogance but what there is, is a determination to keep pushing.

“It’s a results game and we need to keep winning. But we feel confident. We feel we have the tactical, technical and coaching side right and the school of science back. Roberto is phenomenally ambitious.”

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