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New owners of Burnley borrowed from the club claim

Having celebrated the takeover at Burnley as a positive move for the club and its fans, a report in The Athletic gives some grounds for concern.

Our local Claret commented on the report: 'Yes – that’s as I understand it – the Man Utd model. I don’t like it per se one little bit. On the other hand Mr. Pace has made a very good impression from buying property in the area to avoiding the word “soccer” in interviews. He talks the talk and his track record is good. But time will tell.'

New Burnley owner ALK Capital borrowed a sum in the region of £80 million from American technology billionaire Michael Dell’s investment firm to complete its takeover of the Premier League club, The Athletic understands.

According to several well-placed sources, ALK paid about £150 million for 84 per cent of Burnley’s shares but has put in only around £15 million of its own money up front. The rest has come from MSD Capital, the private equity firm set up in 1998 to manage the Dell family fortune — and approximately £55 million from Burnley’s own bank account.

Under their previous ownership, a group of local businessmen led by outgoing chairman Mike Garlick, Burnley have made almost £110 million in profits since 2015 and had £42 million in the bank as of June 30, 2019, the last set of club accounts that are publicly available.   Since then, the club have spent almost nothing on transfers

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