Alan Brazil told his talkSPORT breakfast audience on Friday he had heard Alisher Usmanov was trying to buy his way back into Everton. The host said immediately he could not stand the information up.

“I can’t confirm it, but I hear that Usmanov is trying to get back in at Everton. He has got some serious, serious money,” Brazil said on air.

No bid has been made public, Everton have not commented, and the host named no sources beyond what he had been told.

Friedkin opens the door

The claim lands a week into Everton’s sale process. On 9 October 2026, the Friedkin Group announced it would consider offers for the club, including a “potential sale of a controlling interest”. The Texas-based group, led by Dan Friedkin, bought Everton from Farhad Moshiri in December 2024.

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Manager David Moyes, who has stayed in post through the sale announcement, said he had expected the Americans to stay for the long haul.

“Yeah I was surprised, they’d only came in a year and a half ago,” Moyes said. He added that he had learned of the sale the same morning as the public.

Why Usmanov matters at Goodison

Usmanov was never Everton’s owner, but his money ran through the club for years. His USM Holdings paid for the naming rights to the Finch Farm training ground and had been in line for the naming rights on the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock through its close ties to Moshiri.

That arrangement collapsed in early March 2022, when Everton suspended all commercial agreements with Usmanov’s companies within days of him being placed on the EU and UK sanctions lists over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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EU out, UK in

The EU removed Usmanov from its restrictive measures list on 22 September 2026, after France pushed for the delisting on national-security grounds. Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha called the decision “shameful and unjustifiable” and said “Moscow is celebrating”.

The UK and the United States did not follow. Both men remain designated under the UK’s Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, with asset freeze, travel ban and related measures still in force, and both are still on the US Treasury’s SDN list. Lithuania has gone further and imposed a national asset freeze on Usmanov after the EU vote.

For Everton, the practical effect is unchanged: an acquisition or stake purchase by Usmanov is blocked under UK law for as long as that designation stands, whatever the EU has done. The Premier League’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test would also sit between any bidder and the club.

Brazil’s report is therefore a rumour, not a transaction. The named bidder cannot legally buy an English football club today, and the seller has only been in the market for a week.

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