Everton FC fan group Trust Everton launches plan to buy club’s £15m Finch Farm training ground Read More http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/everton-fc/everton-fc-news/2012/02/08/everton-fc-fan-group-trust-everton-launches-plan-to-buy-club-s-15m-finch-farm-training-ground-100252-30287313/?#ixzz1lt1Tg7c5

A GROUP of Everton FC fans want to become landlords of the club’s Finch Farm training ground by using supporter donations to buy the £15m complex. The idea, which has the backing of shadow health secretary and Goodison Park season-ticket holder Andy Burnham, has been received with interest by club officials who have already met with the Trust Everton group. Everton FC currently rent their 55-acre training base after selling it to ROM Capital for around £2million in 2007, but last October ROM announced they wanted to sell. Now one of the men behind Trust Everton, web entrepreneur Tony I’Anson, is trying to gauge interest in the proposal with an online survey. Tony, 42, said: “Everton has a long history of firsts in football. This could be the next – supporters of a Premier League club owning one of its main property assets. “To get the wheels in motion we need to show the current owners of Finch Farm that there is a genuine will amongst the fan base to make this happen, and that’s why we’ve set up the survey. “The training ground is currently owned by a third party finance company who’ve put it on the market. “The logic is that someone has to own it, and at the moment the club is paying rent, and that money will continue to disappear. “Ideally Trust Everton would buy Finch Farm using subscription-based memberships and other sources of finance. Any surplus could then be used to finance other fixed commercial assets, for example to support the financing of a stadium redevelopment. “We see it as a positive move where the fans feel like they are really part of something. We’d be working with the current owners of the club. “But the aim is to still exist in 150 years when we are all gone, and the next generation are working with whoever owns Everton, whether it’s a local businessman or a Sheikh.” Read More http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/everton-fc/everton-fc-news/2012/02/08/everton-fc-fan-group-trust-everton-launches-plan-to-buy-club-s-15m-finch-farm-training-ground-100252-30287313/?#ixzz1lt1u0k58