Bank to blame for Everton's lack of spending - chairman

LONDON (Reuters) -- Everton chairman Bill Kenwright has said the club's lack of activity in the transfer market is because the bank will not lend them any more money.

The Premier League side have not signed any players in the close-season and manager David Moyes has spent only two million pounds ($3.31 million) in the last three transfer windows.

Everton, who finished seventh in the league last season, are operating under a sell-to-buy policy but have been unable to offload anyone to raise funds to strengthen their squad.

Kenwright said the club had been hit by the global recession with banks clamping down on lending in the wake of the economic downturn.

"Two things. One, the world is in a recession and I don't know any business that isn't suffering at the moment and I include football in that, other than the financial elite," he said on Sky Sports News.

"Two, we've come to a stage with our bank with our finance where we just can't borrow any more.

"You've been at the AGMs, EGMs, the shareholders' meeting when I've said year after year, what we do is we beg and borrow from the bank. That's what we've been doing.

"The banks are tightening in now. We just can't borrow any more money. A, to protect the football club and B, to protect the fans. I know the progress over the past decade has been phenomenal on and off the pitch.

"We knew this summer we were going to get to a point where things were going to get very, very tight. We knew we had to trade.

"There has not been a lot of trading in football itself this summer. We've not been able to trade yet and that's the reason that we've not bought in a new player."