Relegated from the Premier League last season, Sheffield United have been on the market for at least two years, during which time they have twice got into talks with guys who were all mouth and no money, convicted fraudster Henry Mauriss and Dozy Mmobuosi, who was last seen on the run from American justice in his native Nigeria.
With those embarrassing experiences in mind, Sheffield
United owner Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad Al Saud asked financial services firm
Lazard to find someone who might be able to write a cheque that does not
bounce.
As Sheffield United are known as “the Blades”, a nod to the
city’s status as a steel-making centre, Lazard has dubbed its search Project
Saif, the Arabic word for blade. The 25-slide sales brochure leans heavily on
the club’s long history, recent visits to the Premier League and “six critical,
wholly-owned real estate assets”: the stadium, two training grounds, a hotel,
an office block and a community sports centre.
Among the other assets listed are “£90million (in)
guaranteed parachute payments”, the money guaranteed to clubs relegated from
the Premier League and a source of revenue which continues to make a mockery of
the Championship’s competitive balance, and what was a 28-man first-team
squad at the end of last season.
Since then, the club have sold Cameron Archer, Jayden
Bogle and Benie Traore for more than £20million, as well as
saying goodbye to a dozen more players on free transfers, retirements and
expired loans. Half a dozen players have arrived, including Harrison
Burrows and Kieffer Moore for small fees, but manager Chris
Wilder’s options look a little light with the season now just two weeks off.
The ownership situation remains uncertain, too, as a
potential bid from a group led by two U.S.-based Englishmen, Tom Page and
Dominic Hughes, has started the English Football League’s owners’ and
directors’ test (OADT) but is still a long way from completing it.
Their fund, Vertex Albion Capital, is registered to a small
commercial property next to a barbershop in Menlo Park, the so-called “capital
of venture capital” in California’s Silicon Valley, but it has only made three
filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission and none since 2022. It
has no working website and there is very little public information about any
investments it has made.
A 2014 blog post from Page does provide a few biographical
details — born in Wolverhampton, educated in the U.S., a stint as a
professional poker player — but we do not know how wealthy he and Hughes are,
whether they are working alone or why they want to buy Sheffield United.
Attempts to ask these questions have so far failed.
In the meantime, the EFL has had to remind the club that
only officials who have passed the OADT, or are currently employed by the club,
can engage in negotiations with players, and there is also the small handicap
of having to start the season on minus two points because of unpaid payments to
other clubs during the 2022-23 season.
Four Four Two magazine
in its season preview says ;a swift response to relegation seems unlikely’ and
forecasts a 12th place finish.
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