Premier League outfit Everton are reportedly close to being taken over by 777 Partners, who currently own Genoa as well as a network of different clubs across Europe, South America and Australasia.
The Toffees were officially put up for sale by current owner Farhad Moshiri in January with an asking price of over €565 million (£500m), but Moshiri is open to a minority, majority or full sale of the club.
According to Tuttomercato, the holding company, which also currently owns Serie B promotion hopefuls Genoa, have intensified their contact with representatives from Everton in recent days.
777 Partners have overtaken other potential investors MSP Sports Capital in the race to acquire the Merseysiders as per the report on Monday morning.
Everton find themselves entangled in a relegation dogfight in the Premier League and slipped back into the bottom three after being held to a 0-0 draw by Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon.
The club are also underway with their plans to construct a new, state-of-the-art stadium on the Bramley-Moore Dock, which would make the books incredibly difficult to balance if they were relegated to the second division for the first time since 1951.
For some time now, Everton fans have grown restless with the club’s current ownership and clearly, something needs to change if they are to turn around their recent misfortunes.