The Championship Is For Sale
Owning a football club is fun and there are worse ways to spend your money than bringing enjoyment and pride to thousands.
But they are bloody expensive — money pits, if you will.
According to Kieron O’Connor, the football finance expert behind the Swiss Ramble Twitter feed, Championship clubs have lost a combined £2.5 billion over the last decade, which is what happens when you spend £1.16 on wages for every £1 you earn, as the clubs did in 2019-20.
So, they are all “for sale”, to one degree or another, as nobody can afford this level of attrition forever — their accountants, families or investment committees won’t let them — but, clearly, some are a lot more for sale than others.
Here, then, is our attempt to rank them in terms of how badly they need someone else to pay the bills, or how ready they are to share the burden.
For sale or foreclosed
You cannot get more “for sale” than being in administration, so let us turn the Championship upside down and start with Derby County.
Local tech tycoon Mel Morris bought the two-time English champions in 2015 and spent the next five years breaking transfer records and churning through managers. Having faltered twice in the play-off semi-finals, Derby went one worse in 2019, losing to Aston Villa.
That was the beginning of the end for Morris. He sold the club’s Pride Park stadium to himself to help Derby avoid breaking the English Football League’s spending rules but the ensuing controversy caught up with them in the end.
Mel Morris pictured in 2016 (Photo: Tony Marshall/Getty Images)
In 2020, the league charged Derby with overvaluing the stadium and manipulating the cost of their transfer spending, which triggered a legal tug-of-war that was only resolved this week. Derby beat the stadium charge but were found guilty of the accounting offence. Hoping to avoid another tribunal, club and league spent months in talks to find an agreed penalty. They finally settled on nine points.
That took this season’s subtractions to 21 points, after the club were hit with the automatic 12-point penalty for entering administration in September. That was when Morris decided enough was enough. He was at least £200 million down.
Insolvency specialists Quantuma are in charge now and have said they can fund the club, which is still losing money, until January. But they have had to borrow more money to do that — from whom and on what terms they have not said — which is not going to make this sale easier.
One of English football’s founding clubs, Derby were a big team in the 1970s. They have a large fanbase and have had two spells in the Premier League. They also have a good reputation for developing talent and having someone as marketable as Wayne Rooney as their manager is a bonus, regardless of how good at it he may be.
On the flip side, Derby have been on the market for at least two years, with proposed sales to Swiss-based businessman Henry Gabay, Dubai royal Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan and Spanish boxer-turned-agent Erik Alonso collapsing along the way.
There is also about £50 million in debt on the books that Morris cannot write off or Quantuma magic away. That is a lot to shell out before you address the squad, rebuild the organisation or buy back the stadium, which is worthless to anyone other than a professional football team in Derby.
We want out… or do we?
No team in England have had the sale signs up longer than Hull City. They first went up in September 2014 when owner Assem Allam issued a statement to say he was selling the club he bought in 2010, adding: “I will give it away. Out means I’m out. Have I ever said anything and gone back on it?”
Allam put the club up for sale because of spectacular fallings-out with the club’s supporters and landlords. The first of those is the most famous, as he wanted to change the club’s name to Hull Tigers, believing it to be more marketable. The fans disagreed and the Football Association concurred, blocking it in April 2014.
But it is believed Allam also wanted to drop “City” because he was fed up with the council after it refused to sell him the stadium it built in 2002 for the club and one of the city’s rugby league sides, Hull FC. Which of those frustrations was the final straw is a matter of debate but whichever it was, the result was the same: the then-Premier League side, which had reached the FA Cup final that May, were available for £120 million.
Hull City celebrate promotion back to the Championship last April (Photo: Rich Linley – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Since then, numerous bidders have been linked with the club, with the most serious being a group led by American-based Chinese businessman Chien Lee in 2016. They eventually decided Barnsley (see below) were better value. A Chinese group led by Dai Yongge and his sister Dai Xiu Li, who eventually bought Reading (also see below), got close in 2016, too, only to encounter undisclosed issues with the Premier League’s ownership checks.
The Athletic has spoken to several parties who have looked at Hull. They have all said the main reason they did not proceed was that Allam and his son Ehab have a habit of changing the price or terms at the last moment, making them wonder if they really want to sell at all.
After three relegations and two promotions in seven years, Hull are back in the Championship. But they are in the relegation zone and under an EFL transfer embargo for taking one of the league’s COVID-19 loans. They also owe the Allams about £40 million. This means the asking price has fallen to a more realistic £20 million up front, with the potential for bonus payments if the club is promoted. The amount and timescale of these bonuses have been among the sticking points.
The Allams have agreed a deal in principle with Turkish media magnate Acun Ilicali. But they have been in talks for months, during which time at least one US-based party has been in for a tour. Ilicali is also understood to want to pay in instalments.
Is Acun the one? Hard to say but he was back in Hull on Tuesday for a meeting with the Allams and is said to be very bullish the deal will go through. If he is not the one, the search will continue. After all, out means out, right?
China calling
We are now into the first of our groups of clubs, as these teams are all “for sale” for broadly the same reasons.
Birmingham City are technically always for sale by dint of their parent company’s listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The same principle applies to Manchester United but that is where the comparisons end.
Birmingham are 15th in the Championship, a fair reflection of the club they have been since relegation from the Premier League 10 years ago. Like Derby, they have had their scrapes with the EFL, lost points and sold their stadium. And like most others in this division, they have racked up huge losses.
They have been under Chinese ownership since 2007, when Carson Yeung led a takeover that made former owners David Gold and David Sullivan a lot of money and left Birmingham in the hands of an entertainment and sportswear company based in Hong Kong but registered in the Cayman Islands.
Troy Deeney joined Birmingham City in the summer (Photo: Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
That company, now called Birmingham Sports Holdings (BSH), has changed hands a few times and Yeung was ousted as chairman in 2014, when he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in Hong Kong for money laundering.
BSH, which has a market capitalisation of about £250 million, still owns most of Birmingham City but has been trying to sell the team, with varying degrees of effort, for years. The problem is it will only get a fraction of the money it has poured into the club. Everyone knows that but BSH does not want to admit it as it would mean a significant loss of face and value on the balance sheet.
Former Watford owner Laurence Bassini is the latest to be linked with Birmingham but there is no reason why anyone should think he is more likely to get this deal over the line than any of the others he has attached himself to. So, Birmingham will remain for sale, with mysterious owners who have no obvious link to the club, city or English football.
The same can be said of local rivals West Bromwich Albion, who are in better shape on and off the pitch but are also under Chinese ownership that no longer makes much sense.
Guochuan Lai bought the club in 2016 at the height of China’s football gold rush. This was a giddy period that saw investors — some state-backed, some just showing off — throw money at clubs at home and abroad. The Guangdong-based investor is understood to have paid about £200 million to join the fun.
But what fun? Promotion is OK but relegation isn’t and neither are annual losses. And that is why a story about a West Brom bid comes up every six months. Lai has never looked like he was enjoying it and is certainly not getting any love in China for investing in a strategic asset. On the contrary, all of China’s football speculators have been told to bring their money home.
Guochuan Lai visits West Brom in August 2016 (Photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/West Bromwich Albion FC via Getty Images)
But can he accept a 50 per cent hit? Because £100 million or so, depending on how certain promotion is looking, is the going rate for a yo-yo club, with a medium-sized ground in an unfashionable location.
Which leads us to Reading, the Championship’s other Chinese-owned club.
As mentioned, the Dai siblings tried to join the football party at Hull in 2016 but ended up in Berkshire a year later. Their story has shades of Birmingham and Derby about it, as they have thrown money at getting back to the Premier League, lost pots of it and had to pull the stadium-sale trick. They still face a points deduction for overspending, though.
Dai Yongge’s fortune is wrapped up in a retail property firm listed on the Chinese stock market, and retail property has struggled in China as much as it has everywhere else during the pandemic. There is no evidence he is short of cash but he has shut down the football clubs he owned in Belgium and China.
A fight against relegation awaits. That makes Reading hard to value, even before you get into any conversation about what Dai Yongge’s pride would accept.
A change of circumstances
Our next group of clubs are in this category for different reasons and they also differ from each other in lots of ways. But they are all for sale, whether they would publicly admit it or not.
Huddersfield Town head this group as the circumstances of majority-owner Phil Hodgkinson have rapidly changed in the last few weeks, prompting speculation about his ability to hold onto the club.
He bought them in 2019 from Dean Hoyle, the founder of greeting cards retailer Card Factory. Hoyle had been in charge of his boyhood club for a decade that saw the West Yorkshire side go from League One to the Premier League.
His health was failing, though, so he decided to sell the club to another local boy made good in Hodgkinson, who owned non-League side Southport but sponsored Huddersfield and made it clear which club he really wanted to own.
After sorting out Southport’s sale, Hodgkinson took over at Huddersfield, now back in the Championship, with Hoyle retaining 25 per cent and about £45 million in IOUs. His first two seasons in charge saw the club struggle on the pitch, finishing 18th and 20th, but run a tight ship by the division’s standards, with Hoyle’s debt falling to under £35 million.
Alex Pritchard and Steve Mounie celebrate a Premier League goal against West Ham in November 2018 (Photo: William Early/Getty Images)
But earlier this month, Hodgkinson put nine of his companies, including claims firm Pure Legal, into administration. This put hundreds of jobs in jeopardy but it also told every accountant, agent, banker and lawyer who specialises in club takeovers that Huddersfield were in play.
Huddersfield issued a statement to point out the club was a separate entity to the Pure companies and there was no need to panic. It should also be stated that Hoyle’s health has improved. With him involved, there is no suggestion Huddersfield must be flogged off pronto. Hoyle will be looking for help, though.
Preston North End are another club that is being discussed by people who watch the market, albeit with great respect, as Preston’s owner Trevor Hemmings died last month.
The bricklayer-turned-billionaire had been on Preston’s board since the 1970s but only bought them outright in 2010. His support helped get Preston out of League One in 2015 and turned them into solid Championship performers. But like their rivals, they lose money every season, even before COVID-19.
His son Craig wrote an open letter last week that talked of honouring his father’s legacy and “getting on with things”. It was well written and exactly what fans, players and staff will have wanted to hear but he admitted the family have always seen themselves as “custodians” whose goal it is “to leave the club in better condition than when we took over (when/if that day eventually comes)”.
Nobody is suggesting that day is imminent but Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic are three neighbours who found new custodians soon after their long-term benefactors died or decided to hand over the keys.
Sheffield United, or more precisely their owners, United World Group, are also understood to be open to offers.
United World Group is controlled by Prince Abdullah bin Musaid Al Saud. The Saudi royal first bought a 50 per cent stake in Sheffield United for £1 in 2013 but that was when he and former owner Kevin McCabe were partners.
That relationship ended up in the courts, with Prince Abdullah winning the right to pay £5 million for the other half of the club in 2019, as well as market value for property assets linked to the club. In the meantime, Prince Abdullah has built his own multi-club group, with teams in Belgium, Dubai, France and India.
McCabe and Prince Abdullah in happier times (Photo: Chris Brunskill/Getty Images)
Some sources believe he may have overstretched himself, a situation not helped by the pandemic. But others say there is a simpler reason why Sheffield United are available: there can only be one English club in Saudi Arabia and that is Newcastle United.
Speaking to the Sheff United Way YouTube channel in September, Prince Abdullah admitted Sheffield United “had to sell players” this summer but did not want to tell the world that news. As a result, the club got good prices, particularly for Aaron Ramsdale following his £24 million move to Arsenal. But to avoid getting into that position again, the owner added: “We’re trying to get some partners to make the group more strong financially.”
Will someone make me an offer, please?
We’re getting into mid-table now and first up is Bristol City, a club in a similar corner of the market to Preston, in that this is a question of succession.
Owner Stephen Lansdown is very much alive and still fabulously wealthy, having made billions in stockbroking, some of which he has spent on turning Bristol City, basketball team Bristol Flyers and rugby union club Bristol Bears into a multi-sport gang called Bristol Sport.
Lansdown is 69 and has been involved at Bristol City for 25 years. His son Jon is chairman of Bristol City but Stephen Lansdown told a Bristol City fans’ podcast earlier this year that he and his family were thinking about how much longer they wanted to do this — the football club lost £10 million in 2019-20. Jon Lansdown repeated the same sentiments last month.
The Athletic is aware the search for help, and potentially a full takeover, is underway. Bristol City have lots going for them — a great ground and a state-of-the-art training facility — but they have only spent nine of their 126 years in the top flight and were a third-tier side as recently as 2015.
The feelers have been put out at Nottingham Forest, too, although it can sometimes be hard to work out if people claiming to have “mandates” to sell clubs really do, or if the plan is to find the buyer first and then contact the club’s owner to see if they are interested. That could be said about half a dozen clubs in the Championship.
What we can say about Forest is that Greek media and shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis bought them in 2017 for £50 million and promised to restore the double European champions to continental competition within five years, as well as redeveloping the City Ground and training facility.
Forest have finished 17th, ninth, seventh and 17th under his watch, and are currently 13th. Steve Cooper is his sixth manager (nine including caretakers) and Forest lost more than £45 million between 2017 and 2020. There has been no discernible progresson the building work, either.
Blackburn Rovers‘ Indian owners the Rao family would be forgiven for wanting out, too, having bought the Lancashire club for about £43 million, including debt repayments, in 2010. Best known for their chicken business, Venky’s, the Raos have put close to £200 million into Blackburn, which is hardly a paltry sum.
Relegated to the third tier in 2017, they bounced back at the first opportunity and have been a mid-table side for the last three seasons. They are currently seventh. It could be a good time to get out.
Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan is another mega-rich businessman who came from Malaysia in 2010. Tan has enjoyed two promotions to the Premier League but Cardiff’s stays in the top flight were fleeting and they are no longer one of the lucky half-dozen clubs on parachute payments. They lost £12 million in 2020 and 2021’s figure will be worse.
The 69-year-old’s main business is the Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya Corp, which lost nearly £80 million last year. Tan is still very rich but nobody can lose money forever.
Of course we’re for sale, what do you think we’re doing here?
That leads us to the next group: Barnsley, Coventry City, Millwall and Swansea City. Four teams owned, or largely owned, by US-based investors.
We have listed them alphabetically, as none is more for sale than the other but all have been linked with takeovers, or talk of new investment, in recent years, which is not surprising when you remember who owns them and why they bought them.
As mentioned, Barnsley were bought in late 2017 by a group comprised of Chinese-American hotel entrepreneur Chien Lee, American investor Paul Conway’s Pacific Media Group, Indian businessman Neerav Parekh and Oakland Athletics exec Billy “Moneyball” Beane. An eclectic bunch, then.
Lee and Pacific Media Group have already cashed in one football investment, OGC Nice, and reinvested the money in teamsin Switzerland, Belgium, France, Denmark and the Netherlands. They will do so again if the price is right or the player-trading returns are not working.
Coventry City should probably be the most “for sale” of these clubs, though, as they are owned by a hedge fund run by an American who was admiringly called the “queen of debt” by The Sunday Times in 2005. Few Coventry fans have spoken about Joy Seppala in such positive terms during the 14 years Sisu Capital has owned their club.
Sisu has been by far the most controversial of this subset of owners, having spent most of the last 14 years in dispute with various landlords at the Ricoh Arena — a row that has seen Coventry spend a year playing at Northampton Town and then two years at Birmingham City. They also got relegated to League Two in 2017.
But, despite numerous “rescue” offers, Seppala and Sisu are still in charge and Coventry are back in the Championship, at the Ricoh, playing well. She even gave an interview to the BBC recently, saying Sisu was committed to building a new ground. Wonders never cease. But equally, if someone was to offer her, say, £50 million in cash, with another £20 million on promotion, they would not need to repeat themselves.
Millwall are majority-owned by John Berylson. The 68-year-old first invested in the club in 2007, attracted more by the development potential around the stadium and its proximity to central London than any great passion for football.
But the Boston-based businessman has stuck around, far longer than anyone expected, and has helped them to become a stable Championship side on a modest budget. They lost “only” £10 million in 2020, having made a small profit the year before. It is no secret, however, they would like some help to realise that development potential and perhaps even mount a serious tilt at promotion.
Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien teamed up to buy 80 per cent of Swansea in 2016, when the Welsh side were still in the Premier League. Kaplan is the co-founder of a successful asset management firm that specialises in distressed securities, a tradeable debt in stricken companies. Hmmm.
Levien is a lawyer turned agent, who joined actor Will Smith in a group that bought NBA team the Philadelphia 76ers in 2011. Smith, of course, is “West Philadelphia born and raised”.
Levien swapped that stake for one in new NBA team the Memphis Grizzlies but not before he and fellow Sixers owner Erick Thohir had bought majority stakes in MLSside DC United. In 2019, he joined a consortium that bought 75 per cent of Australian basketball team Brisbane Bullets.
That is how these guys roll and the longer Swansea remain a) outside the Premier League and b) loss-making, the likelihood grows they will sell their stakes and go to a league where the downsides are less terrifying.
We’re OK, thanks… unless you want to make me an offer?
Only eight clubs left, so we are getting to the ones who could probably look each of us in the eye and say “no, we’re not for sale” and sound like they mean it.
This next group is made up of five clubs owned by British or Irish owners, some of whom still live in the area and appear to like football, which is nice.
Dublin-born entrepreneur Darragh MacAnthony bought Peterborough United in 2006, having learned about the opportunity from Big Ron Manager, a documentary about former Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson’s efforts to find the League Two side a new owner.
MacAnthony was only 30 at the time, the youngest owner in the league, and he delivered on his promise to get them up to the Championship in two years. They have been up and down twice since then but he is still very engaged in the business, despite living in Florida — a state full of wealthy people who seem to want to invest in English clubs, so maybe someone will make him an offer.
Luton Town were led out of administration in 2008 by a consortium of supporters, including TV presenter Nick Owen. He stood down as chairman in 2017, by which time the club had climbed out of the National League. They would be promoted to League One in 2018 and the Championship a year later.
They finished 12th last season and are currently 11th, which is some achievement for a club run on a sustainable basis. They are a model club in many ways but have been trying to build a new stadium for as long as anyone can remember. That may require some help.
Hong Kong-based hedge fund boss Simon Sadler bought his boyhood club Blackpoolin 2019, when a court ordered the former owners, the Oyston family, to sell to settle an unpaid debt to a former partner. For fans who had been boycotting the club until the Oystons left, this was the best news since promotion to the Premier League in 2010.
Blackpool celebrate promotion to the Championship via the play-offs in May (Photo: Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Blackpool earned promotion back to the Championship last season, Sadler’s second, and they have made a good start to this campaign. He is also pushing ahead with plans for a new training ground and a new stand at the club’s Bloomfield Road home.
Middlesbrough have been owned by their local-boy-done-good for far longer than two years, as Steve Gibson joined the board at 26, formed a consortium to save them at 28 and then became the club’s majority owner at 35. The transportation entrepreneur is now 63 and has been bankrolling the club for 37 years.
They spent 11 straight seasons in the Premier League between 1998 and 2009, winning the League Cup in 2004 and getting to the UEFA Cup final two years later. Boro have only had one season in the top flight since 2009, though, which has forced Gibson to dig deep into his pockets. The club lost nearly £36 million in 2020.
He has reined in his support a bit since then and become an advocate for tighter financial controls across the game, but there is no sign of him wanting to cash his chips in just yet.
The division’s other great local benefactor, the Coates family, also appear to be happy to keep subsidising their team, Stoke City, although they would actually prefer it if the league would let them spend even moreof the millions they make from their Bet365 empire than they are currently allowed.
Stoke born and bred, Peter Coates first became the club’s majority owner in 1986 but sold the club to an Icelandic consortium in 1999. Seven years later, however, he bought Stoke back, as they were struggling on and off the pitch.
A decade in the Premier League came to an end in 2018 and the last three seasons have been frustrating. But the arrival of former Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill has improved matters and they are currently fifth.
Peter’s son John is now the club’s co-chairman and his daughter Denise runs Bet365. There seems to be no danger of the family running out of money: she earned £469 million last year.
Unfinished business
That leaves three clubs owned by wealthy foreigners or, in one club’s case, more than one wealthy foreigner.
We will start with them because Queens Park Rangers could once claim to have the richest owners in football. That was when Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal joined Formula One bosses Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone at Loftus Road in 2007. Mittal was one of the world’s richest men at the time but it soon became apparent he was not really involved at all, and QPR was something for his British son-in-law Amit Bhatia to do.
Bhatia is still involved but Briatore and Ecclestone handed their keys over years ago. Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes became the majority shareholder in 2011, with compatriot Ruben Gnanalingam making it a triumvirate again in 2015.
Fernandes (right) with QPR’s director of football Les Ferdinand in 2017 (Photo: Stephen Pond/Getty Images)
On their watch, QPR have enjoyed two promotions, followed by two quick relegations. They also eventually accepted an EFL fine of more than £40 million in 2018 for overspending during their 2013-14 promotion season. That persuaded them to stop throwing money around and the trio now talk a refreshingly good game on sustainability. They also seem to enjoy their football and clearly do not need the money.
Bournemouth owner Maxim Demin is another who does not need the money, having made the best part of a billion in petrochemicals, but it is hard to know what the Russian thinks as he never speaks publicly. He has homes in the UK but lives in Switzerland and is rarely seen at games.
But he has been the Cherries’ sugar daddy for a decade. After five seasons in the Premier League, they were relegated in 2020 and lost in the play-off semi-finals last season. They look determined to avoid the thrills of the play-offs this season, as they are currently top of the table, eight points clear of third-placed West Brom. Club sources have said Demin might not look like he is enjoying it much but he is determined to get Bournemouth back to the big time.
And that is undoubtedly true of Fulhamowner Shahid Khan, too.
According to US business magazine Forbes, the Pakistani-American is worth £6.7 billion, having made a fortune from car bumpers. He bought the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars in 2012 and Fulham a year later. Including the amount he spent buying the club from former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, Khan is probably in for about half a billion pounds at Fulham.
But he loves the competition and his son Tony Khan fancies himself as a player recruitment specialist. With a third promotion to the Premier League in five seasons in reach, the Khans will be hoping they can stick around a bit longer next time.
