Tim Howard shares what Bill Kenwright told him in private conversation about selling Everton

Luke Randall

Farhad Moshiri is in the process of selling Everton to the Friedkin Group, and Tim Howard has been speaking about what Bill Kenwright told him all those years ago about him selling the club.

Everton could soon have new owners as the Friedkin Group look set to take over from Farhad Moshiri in mid-December if all goes to plan.

One of the remaining hurdles is the Premier League’s owners and directors test, which shouldn’t be an issue and the Friedkin Group are confident on getting it completed.

This will provide the club and fans with a fresh start that hopefully gets the Toffees back to where they belong, challenging for trophies in a brand new stadium.

Interestingly, Tim Howard has a story of his own about a time when Bill Kenwright was trying to find a new buyer for the club.

Kenwright and the Blues other major shareholders agreed to the sale of a 49.9% stake to Farhad Moshiri back in 2016, and he ended up being kept on by the Iranian businessman.

He first became a board member in 1989 before launching a successful takeover of the club in 1999, and later became Chairman in 2004, a role he remained in up until he sadly passed away last year

Tim Howard was a legend himself at Everton, featuring a whopping 414 times for the Toffees.

Interestingly, he’s been talking on his podcast that was recently launched alongside Landon Donovan, and he shared the details of a secret chat he had with Bill Kenwright about selling the club.

“When Bill Kenwright was in his final days as chairman before he sold, he was taking pelters, the fans gave him grief like you wouldn’t believe, right, sell the club, all these things.

“And in my private conversations with Bill Kenwright he basically told me I grew up on The Terraces my grandfather brought me to the Terraces to watch Everton football club, he says I’m going to sell the club Tim, but I have to find the right buyer who’s going to take care of this club.

“It was prophetic because he was basically saying all the fans want to bring money in, okay well we brought some money in; look what happened.

So his worry and his caution was warranted because he didn’t want to sell to someone who was just going to pump money in and lead the club in the wrong direction, and in the end, certain fans got what they wanted.