Everton chairman Bill Kenwright is still hopeful there is a billionaire somewhere who wants to invest in the club.
With manager David Moyes working on a tight budget and the pressing need for a new stadium Kenwright has long accepted the Toffees require a huge injection of capital. However, he pointed out that even if there were a wealthy benefactor out there - and three or four parties are currently interested - the club had to learn lessons from other takeovers which had not gone exactly to plan.
"The truth is Everton do need a billionaire. Of course that's a stock phrase, but we do need major investment," said Kenwright. "One of the difficulties of being a chairman who has had to use money as wisely as he possibly knows how, is that it's hard when you get bombarded, as I have been in the last three AGMs, with questions like 'Why can't we have what Newcastle have? West Ham? Portsmouth?'"
He added: "I even got Notts County last year. A former Everton employee had gone there and evidently there was some rumour mill that I turned down Arab millions beforehand.
"Am I hopeful? I've been hopeful before, and nothing's come of anything. But I will find that investment.
"Keith Harris from Seymour Pierce is probably the top football investment broker. He has been, alongside others, looking for us.
"Every name you see that has been out there looking for football clubs, we've spoken to them. We've had people in the Far East, America, Switzerland, Japan."
Kenwright added that although it pained him to admit it, leaving Goodison Park still represented the best option in terms of boosting capacity and gate receipts.
But after the failure of the £400million Tesco-backed Kirkby project the club were looking at all available alternatives.
"We continue to search for other sites, and we are looking at several Goodison redevelopment possibilities," Kenwright told the Liverpool Echo. "But the problem, as always, is cost. It's easier and cheaper to build a new stadium - but we continue to seriously consider the Goodison situation."
Source: PA
