Everton owners in talks to buy data firm to help manager Moyes
In this week’s Ahead of the Game: Everton’s Friedkin Group looks to data, Hundred and World Cup latest, bookmakers and the EFL.
Everton’s owners, The Friedkin Group, are in talks over buying a data company to assist David Moyes with player recruitment.
Following an internal review conducted at Goodison Park since the multi-club owners bought out Farhad Moshiri in December, TFG has decided to restructure the football department, with the duties that previously fell under the remit of sporting director Kevin Thelwell to be divided among three sub-divisions.
Thelwell, who is moving to Scotland to join Rangers, will be replaced by former Reading and Leeds United football advisor Nicky Hammond, while Everton are in the process bringing in a new head of football operations to lead that division.
Morning Wire has learned that TFG is planning to outsource some of the preliminary recruitment work by buying a data company, whose services would also be used by sister club AS Roma.
Moyes, Hammond and incoming chief executive Angus Kinnear would all have a significant say on future signings at Everton under the proposed new model.
Hundred may stagger cricket deals
The protracted sale of six of the eight Hundred franchises could be completed next month while the England and Wales Cricket Board continues to negotiate with the would-be owners of London Spirit and Oval Invincibles, as their bidders continue to raise issues with the contract.
The eight-week exclusivity period to conclude deals was extended last month and, with no firm deadline to complete, negotiations remain ongoing. While the ECB is confident that all eight sales will eventually go through for the combined £520m offered in the January auction, a number of the host counties are eager to complete their sales sooner rather than later and could be given the green light.
The final decision will rest on advice provided by the ECB’s lawyers.
EFL to mirror Premier League
The English Football League is set to introduce significant rule changes which will permit it to impose punishments on clubs relegated to the Championship who have been sanctioned by the Premier League.
The proposed regulation changes to effectively harmonise the two competition’s rule books for the first time will be discussed by the clubs at a series of divisional meetings this week before being put to a vote, which is expected to pass.
The EFL will also ask their clubs to agree to more robust reporting standards relating to their financial accounts and PSR forecasts.
Last season the EFL released a statement confirming that “whilst it would want to respect any decision of a Premier League disciplinary commission (and vice versa) to deduct points in the EFL, it does not have the power under the regulations as currently drafted.”
Earlier this season Leicester escaped a possible points deduction after their legal team successfully argued that, following relegation last summer, they were not a Premier League club when they submitted their accounts for the 2022-23 season on 30 June 2023.
The club had been charged with a £24.4m breach of the £105m PSR loss limit by the Premier League which, based on the punishments given to Everton and Nottingham Forest last season, would have resulted in a deduction of up to seven points if found guilty.
Under the existing rules Forest would also have escaped a points deduction last season had they been immediately relegated to the Championship following their return to the Premier League in the 2022-23 campaign.
Bookies pull Murphy market
UK bookmakers suspended betting on flat racing’s Champion Jockey market yesterday after reigning champion Oisin Murphy missed racing on Sunday afternoon due to his involvement in a car crash.
The crash occurred shortly after the four-time champion jockey raced on Saturday at Leicester, where he rode three winners in the seven-race event.
Murphy missed four booked rides at Southwell on Sunday due to what a steward’s report from the British Horseracing Authority described as “travel issues,” but he was back in the saddle at Windsor on Monday, picking up another winner.
Despite this quick return to action the champion jockey market was suspended, a surprising development which Morning Wire has been told is a result of bookmakers taking precautions rather than a directive from the BHA.
T20 Cricket World Cup venues revealed
The venues for next year’s women’s T20 World Cup will be announced at a launch event tomorrow, with the ECB aiming to double the previous record of tickets sold at the tournament, a total of 136,000 in Australia five years ago.
The launch will be hosted by an eclectic trio featuring a former Miss America, Nobel Peace Price-winning education activist and England Lioness Rachel Daly.
Actress Vanessa Williams, who was the first black winner of Miss America before embarking on a successful acting career best known for her role in Desperate Housewives and current West End stint in The Devil Wears Prada, will join the youngest ever Noble Prize winner Malala Yousafzai in launching the 2026 competition.
Pakistan-born Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban at the age of 15, has a greater cricketing pedigree as she played at Oxford University and is married to Asser Malik, a former Pakistan Cricket Board official who is now a director at PSL franchise Multan Sultans.
England have won the last two World Cups they hosted, with Eoin Morgan’s men lifting the 50-over trophy in 2019, two years after Heather Knight’s women triumphed in the equivalent competition – a good omen for new coach Charlotte Edwards, who yesterday appointed Nat Sciver-Brunt as England’s new captain.