Everton’s board have decided not to attend Saturday’s Premier League game against Southampton due to a “real and serious threat to their safety”.

The management of the club “Everton” is absent from the stadium for the first time

The club announced that directors had been advised not to go to the Goodison Park arena following “malicious and unacceptably threatening correspondence”, according to News.ro.

“Never before has our board of directors been ordered not to attend matches for security reasons. This is an unprecedented decision,” the club’s spokesman said.

Chairman Bill Kenwright, chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale, chief financial and strategy officer Grant Ingles and non-executive director Graham Sharp “reluctantly accepted the findings of a security assessment carried out by security advisers”.

Everton are 18th in the Premier League table and are winless in their last eight matches, having been knocked out of the FA Cup and League Cup.