David Moyes Stresses Commitment to Everton Amid Ownership Challenges
David Moyes has revealed he has still not met Everton owner Dan Friedkin, despite being back in the Goodison Park dugout since January 2025.
Friedkin, head of The Friedkin Group, completed his takeover in December 2024 and runs the club from Houston. He has yet to attend a home game. In a summer when every decision at Everton has been pored over, that distance has only sharpened the focus on who is actually calling the shots.
Speaking before Sunday’s game against Manchester United, Moyes doubled down on his commitment to a club he once made a regular in the Premier League’s top five, even as the transfer window closed in chaos around him.
Asked directly whether he had met or spoken to Friedkin at any point in the 20 months since his reappointment, Moyes needed just one word.
No.
The day-to-day power instead sits with Friedkin’s son-in-law, Rishi Majithia, working alongside chief executive Angus Kinnear.
“My real contact is Angus,” Moyes explained. “Angus is the one who I would go to see. Rishi is the next one and then the head of the Friedkin family in America.
“I don't really get any direct conversations with them, but I do through Rishi, he is the one I would speak to.”
That arm’s-length ownership model has collided with a fanbase already on edge. The tension spilled over at Bournemouth last Saturday when news broke in the away end that Everton had accepted a £40m offer from Nottingham Forest for Harrison Armstrong, one of the club’s most highly rated young players and an England Under-19s midfielder.
The club eventually backed away from the sale. The damage to trust was not so easily reversed.
Supporters watched the rest of the window unfold with growing disbelief. Beto was sold to Fiorentina on deadline day, with no replacement striker signed. A late move for USA forward Folarin Balogun collapsed at the last moment as the Monaco player pulled out on Tuesday.
When the window finally shut, Everton were left with a threadbare senior squad of just 18 players. Only one recognised striker. One right-back. One left-back. For a club with Everton’s history, it felt alarmingly thin.
Moyes did not hide behind the hierarchy when Armstrong’s proposed sale came up last weekend. He sided with the mood in the stands, stressing that the club is “managed by an Evertonian” and that “supporters aren't always wrong.”
On Friday, he admitted the club’s internal structure still needs serious work.
“We've got new owners in who are still feeling their way in the club. I think if we get to know each other more it will get better,” he said, hinting at a relationship still in its early, awkward stages.
What he would not entertain was the idea of walking away.
“Everton's different,” Moyes said when asked if he had considered quitting. “I wouldn't have come back for anybody but Everton.”
This is the club where he built his reputation between 2002 and 2013, hauling Everton into the top reaches of the league against richer, deeper squads. He knows what the place can become when it unites.
“I think the club here has had enough days where the people find a way of recovering,” he said. “People saw the face of Evertonians last week and it can be really powerful. I would expect them to be really powerful now.
“But powerful for the team, powerful for the players. What we're going to need from them is extra because we're short, so we need them. If they're not with us, then it's terrible. And they are with us, I believe they are with us.”
The owner may be thousands of miles away in Houston. The squad may be light. But Moyes is back on the touchline, staring down another rebuild, banking on one thing that has never been in doubt at Goodison Park: the force of the Everton crowd.
