In the first big call by its new American owners, Everton fired manager Sean Dyche on Thursday just a few hours before the struggling Premier League team played an FA Cup match.
Everton made the move with the team one point above the relegation zone and having won just one of its last 11 games.
More surprising, maybe was the timing of the announcement, which came around three hours before Everton hosted and beat third-tier Peterborough 2-0 in the third round of the FA Cup.
"It’s never nice when a manager loses his job, but then everyone had to get on with their jobs as well — there was a game of football in front of us all," said Leighton Baines, the club’s under-18s coach who along with captain Seamus Coleman was tasked with leading the team on an interim basis.
The storied club — a nine-time English champion which has been without a major trophy since 1995 — was bought last month by the Texas-based Friedkin Group in a deal reportedly worth in excess of 400 million pounds ($495 million).
Fronted by Dan Friedkin and his son Ryan, the group also owns Italian team Roma and has made itself unpopular with supporters of the Serie A club for making contentious management changes — including firing Daniele De Rossi, the club’s beloved former captain, early this season.
Removing Dyche might have been necessary, however, with Everton on a dreadful run of form and having scored in just three of its last 11 matches. With 15 goals from its 19 games, Everton is the second-lowest scorer in the division and has plunged to just one point above the bottom three.
“The process to appoint a new manager is underway and an update will be provided in due course,” Everton said in a statement.
David Moyes, who managed Everton from 2002-13, has been linked with the vacancy. In October, Jose Mourinho — the current coach of Fenerbahce — spoke openly about wanting to return to England to manage a team near the bottom of the standings and not in UEFA competition once his time in Turkey came to an end. Mourinho has coached Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham in the Premier League.
Dyche was in charge for nearly two years, during which he maintained Everton's status as an ever-present in England's top division since 1954. His style of play was pragmatic and often turgid, relying on not conceding goals more than providing entertainment — and that might be something the Friedkins look to change.
Everton’s next Premier League game is on Wednesday against Aston Villa.
Baines said he had no information about who would be in charge for that game.
“Not too sure about that right now,” he said. “Things moved so quickly today. Definitely haven't had time to think about what comes next just yet.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Everton's Beto, center, celebrates scoring during the English FA Cup third round soccer match between Everton and Peterborough United at Goodison Park, Liverpool, England, Thursday Jan. 9, 2025. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Everton caretaker managers Leighton Baines, left, and Seamus Coleman consult on the touchline during the English FA Cup third round soccer match between Everton and Peterborough United at Goodison Park, Liverpool, England, Thursday Jan. 9, 2025. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Everton's Vitaliy Mykolenko, left, and Bournemouth's Evanilson in action during the English Premier League soccer match between Bournemouth and Everton at the Vitality Stadium, Bournemouth, England, Saturday Jan. 4, 2025. (Zac Goodwin/PA via AP)
An aerial view of the newly constructed Everton Stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, Liverpool, the soon-to-be new home of Everton Football Club, Monday Dec. 30, 2024. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — For years, political scientist Scott Yenor has advocated for overhauling colleges and universities, which he has argued undermine traditional American families by encouraging women to pursue careers and put off childbirth.
Now Yenor may get a chance to implement his policy proposals after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the board of the University of West Florida, a public school in Pensacola with about 14,000 students.
The Republican governor's appointment of Yenor and four others to the UWF Board of Trustees this week comes two years after DeSantis stacked the board of another public school, New College of Florida, in what critics called a hostile political takeover. Within weeks, New College's new board fired the sitting president and then replaced her with a former state lawmaker and ally of the governor.
A professor at Boise State University, Yenor has written extensively on what he sees as the dangers of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education as well as the declines of traditional marriage and birth rates in the U.S. He's also a former fellow at The Heritage Foundation, which proposed Project 2025 as a policy blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society.
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in 2021, Yenor detailed what he sees as the “evils” of feminism, labeled “independent women” as “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome” and decried colleges and universities as "the citadels of our gynecocracy” — a form of government run by women.
“If we want a great nation, we should be preparing young women to become mothers,” Yenor said, "not finding every reason for young women to delay motherhood until they are established in a career or sufficiently independent.”
Yenor argued that higher education “delays growing up,” saying that college and universities are “indoctrination camps” that society should de-emphasize in order to make progress on “family matters."
“Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school and the law and every trade,” Yenor said.
“If every Nobel Prize winner is a man, that’s not a failure. It’s kind of a cause for celebration," he added.
Yenor did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about his past statements, but said he supports DeSantis' education agenda.
“An education system shapes the culture. Our current education system, with its divisive DEI policies and ideological monoculture, has produced an ever-worse culture,” Yenor told the AP in an email, saying Florida's education system is better off because of DeSantis' policies.
Chasidy Hobbs, an Earth and environmental science instructor and president of UWF's faculty union, called the comments “disheartening” and “offensive.”
“My most important work of my life was being a mother,” she said, “while also working as a professional woman in a career that I find almost as important as motherhood — to help the future generation learn to think for themselves.” But she added that she looked forward to working with the new board.
Julia Friedland, the governor's deputy press secretary, said the new board members will “break the status quo” and “help refocus the university on the core mission of education."
She did not respond to questions about Yenor's previous statements on women in higher education.
In articles and speeches, Yenor has labeled DEI as a “grave and gathering danger to national unity and state governance," called for eliminating certain disciplines like African Diaspora Studies and said even departments of History and English could be on the chopping block. He's also advocated for sex-segregated education and called for banning state employees from collecting data on the basis of race or sex.
Yenor and the other new appointees to UWF's 13-member board must be confirmed by the Florida Senate.
This story rewrites the headline to correct that Yenor is advocating for prioritization of motherhood.
FILE - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answers questions from the media, March 7, 2023, at the state Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Sears, File)
