Everton chairman Bill Kenwright insists he has always been open to fresh investment.

Kenwright told Sky Sports: "The situation (over ownership) has not changed since day one. Certainly not for the last five years, I have been saying it at every annual general meeting since.

"We are looking for investment, we always have been and we always will be and that continues.

"I do look at the clubs that have the Champions League status that brings in millions and have the multi, multi, multi-millionaires and the billionaires in them. And I think that is probably what it takes now to get a hugely successful football club.

"There is a part of me that hopes that is not true, of course there is and there always will be that feeling inside me.

"But if you look at that top four and the consistency of the top four, there is a lot of money floating around them and we at Everton do not have that money."