Everton are left with a £300 million black hole after cutting ties with Usmanov 

Everton face a black hole of up to £300million in their playing budget in the coming years due to the sanctioning of Alisher Usmanov, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Usmanov was due to sign a naming rights deal for the club's ambitious new Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium via his USM firm.

A 'heads of terms' agreement is understood to have been agreed with options that would give USM a minimum 10-year deal, extendable to 20 years, at a minimum cost of £8m per year, increasing under certain circumstances to £15m a year.

Had a 20-year deal unfolded at the highest price payable, Everton would have benefitted by £300m, and this was envisaged to be spent on players.

But Usmanov has now been sanctioned by both the EU and the UK for his closeness to Vladimir Putin, who is waging war on Ukraine.

So Everton have ditched three commercial deals with Russian firms linked to Usmanov - USM, MegaFon and Yota - and cannot now go ahead with the naming rights contract. 

In another blow to the club, as the prices of steel and energy soar, the new stadium is having modifications made to keep costs down.

Plans for a multi-storey car park have been ditched to save money while cheaper materials are being used, a source says. Parts of the stadium are also being prefabricated offsite to save money.

While construction of the stadium is underway and financing remains possible via JP Morgan and other lenders, Everton will now find it harder to both repay their construction loans and fund players.

A club source acknowledges that the cancelled naming rights deal will mean spending less on players.