Cooper says ‘substantial offer’ to buy Windsor was turned down by Stott
Prior to his departure as Windsor manager, Mark Cooper has revealed he offered a substantial sum of money to buy the club from current owner and director Kevin Stott.
Cooper, who stepped down from his role as Royalists boss at the end of last month – presumably after his offer to buy the club was turned down – believes Windsor could become much more successful if it showed a little more ambition.
On Monday (June 13) it was announced that former boss Mick Woodham would be taking over from Cooper in the Royalists’ dugout.
Stott also said last week that he believes Cooper will own a football club in the not-too-distant future but added that wouldn't be possible for him at Stag Meadow.
Responding to those claims, Cooper – who owns a chain of estate agents,
said: “There’s no secret that I offered Kevin a substantial sum to buy the football club, which he obviously didn’t accept. That’s his prerogative, he’s the owner of the football club. But I just felt that Windsor should be step 3, even a step 2 football club and there’s a lot of scope for it to be very successful and I quite fancied heading up that project if it was possible.
“But it’s his club and it’s his right to turn that down if he wanted to, which he did. I am very ambitious and I'm more than happy to put a lot of time into a project that I think has a good chance of success, but when the chairman says there’s no budget again next year, when there are clubs around you spending small fortunes because they’re ambitious and they want to push forward and move through the leagues, then it doesn’t really tally up with my ambition.
“Whilst I absolutely loved the football club and my time there it ran its course because there was no ambition from the football club. There is so much you could do with Windsor. You can get the youth section involved.
“Look at the Ascot United model, they’ve got so many youth teams playing there, which makes it a busy facility seven days a week. They've put that into their budget which gives them a good chance of success next season.”
Cooper refused to expand on where his next move in football might be, however, it does appear he's begun the process of trying to purchase another club.
“I’ll probably have a much fuller answer for you very soon but, for now,
I’m not going to say anything,” he said.
“If and when things change, I'll certainly be in touch. For now, I'm not going to say anything, but should anything change, you'll will be the first person I call should anything happen.”