Brands' explosive revelations on Moshiri's Everton shambles

Daniel Cabot Kerkdijk

• Updated: 23 May 2023 08:37 CDT
• 4 min read

Marcel Brands generally looks back fondly on his time in England, where he was Everton's director of football affairs between mid-2018 and December 2021.

It was a special adventure for the current general manager of PSV, even if he was often unable to do his job properly because owner Farhad Moshiri was too closely involved in the day-to-day affairs of the Merseyside club in the background.

English culture makes fans and media think the manager is about transfers. “And the owner determines a lot,” Brands knows from his own experience.

MORE: Everton 2022/23 transfers

Moshiri decided that Rafael Benitez should become Everton's new manager, which was not Brands' choice.

“And Benitez wanted Salomon Rondón, I couldn't approve that. He was already in his 30s (31 years old, ed.), was not on the scouting list, he was not going to bring Everton anything. His salary was too high, too,” Brands sums up in conversation with NRC on Saturday.

“I said I thought it was a bad idea. ‘Think of it as a present for the trainer,’ said the owner. Then you are powerless.”

MORE: Everton's most expensive transfers

These were not good decisions by Moshiri: Benitez was fired in January 2022 after just over six months and Rondon scored only three paltry goals in 33 official matches, two of which were in the FA Cup against tiny Boreham Wood.

Brands himself had been fired a month earlier because of the disappointing results.

“The problem is: there is no patience. Twelve coaches have already been fired in the Premier League this season. In my second year, Marco Silva was fired, I tried to prevent that, but it was beyond my control. But I knew that he is a good coach and he is now proving that at Fulham,” he said.

“The owner also determined that an experienced successor had to be brought in, while the chairman and I wanted Mikel Arteta. In the end it was Carlo Ancelotti,” Brands refers to Benitez's predecessor.

'I thought I could change something at Everton...'

He regrets that many good club people were often released when cuts needed to be made.

“Physiotherapists, analysts, you name it. I then had to send people away who were good, hard-working. That's difficult. And it doesn't work either. In the first years I still had the idea that I could change something at Everton. But that did not work out,” he said.

Brands was even told at times who he had to sack. "You can't imagine that world if you haven't seen it yourself," he lamented.

Yet he also received a lot of appreciation from certain sections of the club. “Because I paid attention to the youth, to the structure, looking beyond transfers and really try to build something. When I first went to see Everton’s youth team, I got a message from the coach: ‘How fantastic that you are here, I've never experienced that.’

“I also never saw a technical director from other clubs in those kinds of matches. And we lived beautifully, football is great.”

Brands regrets that there is no time for good policy in the Premier League, especially given the financial possibilities.

“Owners think: ‘I'm pumping money into it, so it should quickly yield success, right?’ But in the Premier League everyone has a lot of money. The funny thing is: with PSV we get more out of commercial activities than Everton, but they get between €130 and 140 million in TV money. That makes it all a bit easier.”