Everton's Kinnear: Keeping Your Best Players Is the Hardest Job in Football
Everton's new chief executive Angus Kinnear has spelled out the brutal arithmetic of modern football: even when a club performs well, holding on to its best players is a fight.
Speaking to BBC Radio Merseyside on 18 August 2026, Kinnear was working two problems at once — trying to keep attacker Iliman Ndiaye at Goodison Park and attempting to bring back Jack Grealish, who spent last season on loan from Manchester City before a January injury cut his campaign short (BBC Sport).
The challenge is not unique to Everton. Kinnear pointed to a pattern across the league this summer. Newcastle, a club with Champions League ambition and wealthy ownership, sold midfielders Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali plus attacker Anthony Gordon. Aston Villa, who qualified for this season's Champions League, sold Morgan Rogers to Chelsea. In other words, even clubs riding high are cashing in on key players rather than resisting offers.
The reason lies in the rulebook. Premier League clubs operate under a squad cost ratio — a cap that limits spending on playing staff to 85% of total revenue. For clubs playing in European competition, UEFA's equivalent rule is even tighter at 70%. When a big offer arrives, selling can be the only way to stay within the lines.
Everton know the cost of crossing those lines better than anyone. In the 2023-24 season, they were deducted eight points for breaching profit and sustainability rules — the Premier League's financial fair play framework, designed to stop clubs spending beyond their means. Those deductions turned a mid-table season into a relegation scrap.
Ndiaye, 26, is exactly the kind of asset that makes the maths difficult. He scored six goals and added three assists last season, and has been linked with a move to Al-Hilal, the Saudi Pro League side backed by the Gulf state's sovereign wealth fund. Saudi clubs, free from the same spending constraints as European teams, can offer wages and transfer fees that test any club's resolve.
Grealish, 30, presents a different equation. He made 22 appearances for Everton last term before injury ended his season in January. He remains a Manchester City player — and came on as a half-time substitute in Sunday's Community Shield defeat to Arsenal, a reminder that City may still see a role for him. Re-signing him would depend on whether City are willing to let him leave again, and on what terms.
For fans, the frustration is easy to understand. You watch a player grow into your team, start to believe the project is building, and then the financial structure of the league pushes him out the door. Kinnear's message, delivered in his first weeks as CEO, was honest about that tension. No amount of good results guarantees a settled squad.
Everton begin the new Premier League season with a familiar balancing act: competing on the pitch while balancing the books off it. The difference now is that the man in charge of the books is saying it out loud.
