Friedkins arrive at Everton while facing flak at Roma after bright start
A banner raised by Roma supporters before their Coppa Italia game at home to Sampdoria on Wednesday spoke to the prevailing mood. “Club and players: all a bunch of frauds,” it read. By recent standards, that was rather tame.
The Friedkin Group, which completed its takeover of Everton on Thursday, has owned Roma since 2020 and enjoyed notable successes: hiring José Mourinho as manager and delivering him the squad he needed to win the first Europa Conference League, as well as finishing as Europa League runners-up a year later. However, the decision to fire the Portuguese in January divided opinion among the fanbase, and the sacking of his successor, Daniele De Rossi, in September sparked open revolt.
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“Yankee Go Home,” read the posters that appeared along the road that leads down the River Tiber toward the Stadio Olimpico. At a protest in Corviale, a housing estate on the outskirts of Rome, ultras set off flares and hung a banner written half in English and half in local dialect: “Friedkin we aren’t in the American Ghetto,” it read. “Here we will tear your heart from your chest.”
Much has happened in the three months since. Roma’s chief executive, Lina Souloukou, resigned amid reports that she had required a police escort after threats made against her by fans. The club appointed Ivan Juric to replace De Rossi, then fired him 12 games later. Claudio Ranieri returned for his third stint as manager, but not even his popularity and status as a trusted “son of Rome” could restore the Friedkins’ reputation.
To an Everton fan looking for clues about their new owners, this all might appear discouraging. Yet the bigger picture is not so black and white. The Conference League was Roma’s first major trophy for 14 years. They lost the Europa League final on penalties against Sevilla – that tournament’s most successful team.
The Friedkins have so far failed in their biggest objective: returning Roma to the Champions League, but even here you could not accuse them of insufficient commitment. Roma spent more than €130m on transfer fees in Mourinho’s first year, adding players such as Tammy Abraham and Rui Patrício. They were not far short of that figure this summer, when they signed Artem Dovbyk and Enzo Le Fée.
A financial fair play settlement restricted their spending in the two years between, but the club still found ways to bring in big names. The unveiling of Paulo Dybala – a former Serie A most valuable player – in July 2022 drew almost 10,000 fans to the Colosseo Quadrato.
Romelu Lukaku headlined a high-profile list of loans one year later. Dan Friedkin, owner of the Friedkin Group, went to collect him personally. An experienced pilot, who won an award for his stunt work in the film Dunkirk, and a producer of movies and TV shows, he knows how to put on a spectacle.
In the early chapters of the Friedkins’ ownership of Roma, they appeared to understand their audience as well. Arriving in a complicated moment, with stadiums closed owing to the pandemic, they made a clear effort to acknowledge fans’ priorities and concerns as Italy reopened.
Ticket prices were lowered and calls for the return of a popular past version of the club badge were acknowledged with its use on special edition shirts. Francesco Totti, who fell out with the club’s previous ownership, was seen having meetings with the Friedkins and started to make appearances at the Olimpico.
All of which makes the misjudgments over Mourinho and De Rossi more surprising. There was never going to be any easy way to part ways with the former, whose reputation in Italy had remained elevated since his treble with Inter in 2010 and whose superstar status restored weekly sellout crowds to the Olimpico long before he delivered a European trophy.
De Rossi was a different case, loved for the life he has devoted to Roma, starting in their academy and growing up to be Totti’s deputy and eventually club captain. If the Friedkins had stuck to their plan, naming him as caretaker until the end of last season and then seeking a long-term replacement, perhaps there could have been a respectful parting.
Instead, the owners announced a three-year contract extension for De Rossi in April, when Roma were at the height of a new-manager bounce. The deal was signed in June, by which time results had started to dip. It was terminated in September, four games into the new season. To treat a club legend in this way was unforgivable to many fans.
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Everton are not Roma, and the city of Liverpool is not Rome. The setting, and the stories, will be different. One can assume some lessons will also have been learned. Perhaps the most pertinent question is: how present will the Friedkins be over the coming months? And how much will they leave to the team they put in place?
For all the recent banners telling them to leave Rome, another one was left outside the Olimpico last month asking: “Friedkin: Who’s seen him?” Neither Dan nor his son Ryan, Roma’s vice-president, had attended a game there since September. The latter eventually made an appearance for the 4-1 win over Lecce at the start of this month. He was loudly whistled when he appeared on the big screen.
With Roma still to name a replacement for Souloukou – though an announcement is expected imminently – Florent Ghisolfi, the 39-year-old sporting director hired from Nice in the summer, has been left to speak on the club’s behalf. In an interview with Il Corriere dello Sport this month, he insisted his employers would make more appearances soon. “They aren’t afraid of dissent,” said Ghisolfi. “They know how to own their responsibilities.”