After 11 years of Maxim Demin, Bournemouth are on course for a new era of ownership. American billionaire Bill Foley, the majority owner of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Vegas Golden Knights, is heading a consortium now in exclusive talks to buy the Premier League club.
Foley is known to be a fiercely ambitious owner. In the NHL,
the annual salary cap is $81.5million (£71.4m), which means teams are only
allowed to spend money on player wages within that limit. But Foley has spent
the absolute maximum amount the league permits, acquiring high-price players on
big contracts in a bid to make the fledgling Golden Knights as competitive as
possible immediately against teams who had already existed for decades.
But there are some downsides to Foley’s aggressive methods
as his patience levels do not seem very high. The Golden Knights have fired two
promising head coaches, Gerard Gallant and Peter DeBoer, in their five seasons
of existence.
Few, though, can question the level of Foley’s investment.
There is a strong feeling among some of those close to him that he will not
come into Bournemouth trying to cut costs to make a profit. Foley lives in Las Vegas, so he is unlikely
to be as hands-on with Bournemouth as he has been with the Golden
Knights.
A sale to Foley would mean the majority of the Premier
League’s current 20 clubs are fully or partly owned by Americans.
Demin has been trying to sell for at least four years but
wants a return on his investment or, at the very least, his money back in any
potential sale. According to the last set of club accounts, Demin was owed
nearly £130million as of last summer, with a note to say that had increased by
£20million since.
It is worth pointing out that Demin still invested another
£23million via player transfers during the transfer window that closed three
weeks ago.
It requires a lot of hard work and money just to keep
Bournemouth at this level.
The club need to finish their new training complex, which
they resumed work on in June. The imminent takeover will not have any impact on
the progress that has already been made on the project.
Then there is the stadium issue.
It is thought there are plans from the would-be new owner to
develop the Vitality Stadium, which is the smallest by far in the Premier
League, holding just over 11,000 people.
The only possible site in the city for a bigger ground is to
build on Kings Park, right next door to the current stadium, but that would
require a change in UK law, as the parkland is protected by an Act of
Parliament from the 1980s. There is a thought that the best-case scenario in terms
of a time scale for Bournemouth to get into a new home is four to five years.
t is also easy to see why Foley and his fellow investors are
interested in the chance to become the Premier League’s latest American owners.
He spent several years trying to bring MLS to Las Vegas and is no stranger to
building a team from the ground up, as seen in his success with the Golden
Knights.
With no manager in place after the sacking of last season’s
Premier League promotion winner Scott Parker just four games into the new
campaign and no big-name star players to appease, Foley will look to hit the
ground running with Bournemouth, as he did with his ice-hockey team.
Insiders believe the club are worth between £80million and
£120million, depending on which division they are in, but Foley might be able
to talk Demin down to a price of around £100million.
There is, however, a scarcity value issue in that Foley and
his investors want a Premier League team now and Bournemouth are available. The
strength of the dollar against the pound has also knocked millions off the
potential price tag.
The club now have a window of opportunity to protect
themselves against a prolonged existence outside the top flight. They must take
advantage of their current Premier League status and a sale could do that
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