Marcel Brands Reveals Everton Difficulties And Clashes With Owner Farhad Moshiri

Marcel Brands has spoken about the difficulties he faced fulfilling his role as a director of football at Everton Football Club, which he held during a time of disarray at Goodison Park between May 2018 and December 2021.

Brands was one of many members of the sporting side of the club—including managers, coaches and technical staff—to leave in recent times amid what has been a haphazard, ineffective and expensive approach to recruiting players and back room staff.

Though the Dutchman was in this director of football role, for much of his time at the club there was a sense that he was unable to carry out this task freely, and unable to actually “direct football” as the job title would suggest.

In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on Saturday, Brands confirmed as much.

“It was a wonderful experience at a wonderful club,” Brands said about his time at Everton.

“I worked with some fantastic people. The supporters and also the history of the club were great, but it is very difficult to leave a mark on such a club. That had to do with the structure.

“In the end, you don’t have the satisfaction you want. There is so much possible at the club if you do it right, but you don’t get the time to build something.”

Brands is now in a similar role as a general manager back in his home country with former club PSV Eindhoven. It’s one which is supposed to offer stability at a club even if there are changes in managers, coaching staff or players.

The director of football aims to recruit players to suit a certain style, and coaches who can get the best out of them. This then means that if a high-profile player is sold or a manager leaves for another team, as was the case with Carlo Ancelotti’s departure from Everton to Real Madrid, there is at least some kind of continuity and a plan to replace departing personnel.

But that was never the case at Everton who have appointed six managers in the past seven years with little to no continuity.

This has led to a rebuild every time a new manager was hired, usually with owner intervention, spending money frivolously and without a long-term plan.

“I was fighting to make a player contract of 50,000 a week 45,000 a week because that fit better in the wage structure and matched the quality of the player,” Brands added.

“And then the owner called, saying that he had been sitting with another player and that he could come for 175,000 a week. Then you say: ‘What’s that going to do in the dressing room? He earns three times as much as the others.’

“That kind of thing makes it difficult. You also see the difference with clubs where the structure is good. Liverpool [for example] has really grown. They have become really stable under Jürgen Klopp. You don’t see any crazy transfers anymore.”

Speaking about the Premier League in general, where there are some huge clubs in terms of their global brand but many who still go about their transfer business in an unorganised way, Brands sounded almost baffled at the way things are done.

“The Premier League is so fantastically well organised and is such a powerful brand, but there is still so much room for improvement in the way the money is handled,” he said.

“To give an example: every time a trainer is fired, the whole team has to leave. That way, you don’t build anything up. That is a waste of money.

“I tried until my last breath to keep coach Marco Silva in the saddle because I was convinced he is a top trainer,” added Brands.

“Then after three defeats, measures are taken.

“I had to talk like a mad man to keep Ancelotti in the saddle, but in the end, he left for Real Madrid because he felt the support of the owners was not there.”

Everton will hope they have learned from these errors, but with current owner Farhad Moshiri at the helm there might always be the possibility of unnecessary and detrimental interference Brands speaks of.

Brands also mentioned to ESPN last week that “the owners are very involved, which makes them easy to influence. That makes it very difficult sometimes. I think more English clubs suffer from that.”

Moshiri has put lots of money into the club, but it has not been spent wisely, leading to Everton’s current situation where they were on the verge of breaking Financial Fair Play rules while also on the verge of relegation. This combination is a sign of a badly run club if ever there was one.

They will be hoping their strategic football review and new director of football Kevin Thelwell along with manager Frank Lampard will be able to get the club back on track for its aim of qualifying for European football.