American businessman John Textor has insisted he and his group were 24 hours away from buying Everton before the Friedkin Group trumped them.
Ole have an interview with the American businessman today in which he revealed what went wrong with his attempted effort to buy Everton earlier this year.
Textor appeared to be the frontrunner to buy the Toffees a few months ago after initial talks between Farhad Moshiri and the Friedkins had failed.
He went on a very public tour announcing his intention to buy Everton at that point, at one point insisting he was 90% sure the deal would be done with Moshiri despite the fact he had still not managed to offload his current shares in Crystal Palace.
That seemingly prompted the Friedkins to go back to the table and they are now on course to complete a takeover at Goodison Park before the end of the year, with it already passing the first stage of tests by the authorities.
Textor, meanwhile, has continued his efforts to buy an English club and own it completely and has been linked with a potential move to buy Watford in the Championship.
That process is ongoing, and it seems the American is now happy to share what went wrong with the attempt to get Everton publically.
“In England, we thought we were very close to Everton,” he said.
“I think I’ll probably say it for the first time publicly now. We didn’t realise that we were 24 hours away, our documents were ready, and we were ready to send the money and they were still going through a bidding process with another buyer.
“Sometimes you can achieve a lot with a handshake. Other times you need more than a handshake. And that was a situation where we lost because we were too confident in the outcome.
“So, I make mistakes, the Everton thing didn’t happen, there’s probably a reason for that. I think there are reasons for everything. And I think we’re going to end up with a better situation in the Premier League. And there’s a reason why that didn’t happen and something else will.”
