Moyes ends doubts by signing new deal

David Moyes became the highest paid employee in Everton's history yesterday, putting pen to paper on a five-year £16.5m deal which more than doubles his salary to £63,000 a week. Moyes, whose salary previously stood at £30,000 a week, admitted recently that he was contributing to a sense of unease which had filtered through into the dressing room, as the deliberations over his contract dragged on. It is understood that there were no major problems at Moyes' end and that the new deal, worth £3.2m a year, was agreed in principle two months ago – the delay being attributable to minor legal issues in the paperwork.

Initially, Moyes had refused to sign until transfer funds were released. Then he spent a club record £15m on the Belgium midfielder Marouane Fellaini and signed four other players. But still no long-term commitment to Everton was forthcoming and, with the Scot in the final year of his contract, fans had grown anxious. "What happens is when the manager's position is uncertain then uncertainty can come into the club," Moyes admitted after the dire 2-0 defeat to Liverpool.

But last night, after signing his new contract at the club's Finch Farm training complex, he pledged his future to the club. "There have been many different things for different reasons but we are here now and the big thing for me is that I am at Everton, as far as I am concerned, for another five years and the job is to make us better than we have been," Moyes said. "I have enjoyed my time here so far and I am looking forward to the next part as well. There is definitely a consistency at the club; players know what they are doing and staff know what they are doing."

Moyes left Preston to take charge at Everton following the sacking of Walter Smith in 2002. Under his leadership Everton have twice claimed a place in the Uefa Cup as well as reaching the qualifying stages of the Champions League in 2005. But the club's indifferent start to the current campaign, with their defence looking shaky and their previously solid home form a thing of the past, gave rise to a sense that Moyes had done all he could on Merseyside.

Now he has pledged better days ahead. "Since I took over six years ago, I think there has been an improvement and the job is that I want a similar improvement over the next five years or so. I want the ambition to be greater. I want the expectancy to be higher and I want Everton overall to be higher on the field and off the field."

The club's chairman, Bill Kenwright, said: "There have always been two people – myself and David – confident that the long-term future of the manager would eventually be secured. The signatures of those two people are now on a contract."

Kenwright's next priority is to find a buyer for the club. He has engaged his old friend Keith Harris, of financiers Seymour Pierce, to find a buyer. Harris said yesterday he was optimistic. "It is not going to be hot money or people who want to do all sorts of strange things. It is somebody who is going to carry on the tradition," he said. The public inquiry into Everton's proposed new stadium is key to the pursuit of a buyer, Harris said. "It is very difficult for clubs to compete at the highest level if they can't get 55,000 or 60,000 people to come to watch them."

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