Cats chief Short asks Keith Harris to make club sale fly
AFTER EIGHT YEARS AMERICAN OWNER WANTS OUT
SUNDERLAND have asked wellknown football consultant Dr Keith Harris to help find a new buyer for the club, according to reports.
While sources close to the club have played down stories they are in talks to sell to a German consortium, a report in The Times claims that is the case, and that Dr Harris is helping to strike a deal.
Dr Harris has built a reputation on the back of his involvement in Roman Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea, and also oversaw the sale of Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Fulham, West Ham United and Everton. He is now a director at Goodison Park.
Newcastle United also asked him to find a buyer in 2008, but he was unable to do so.
Owner-chairman Ellis Short has long been open to offers for the club, and has been actively searching for one since late last year.
He took a controlling interest in the club in 2008 before assuming ownership in September 2009.
In that time he has appointed nine permanent managers, and last season the club was relegated from the Championship, drastically reducing its revenue streams and therefore its value.
The Black Cats’ most recent accounts revealed them to be £110.4m in debt, much of it in interest-free loans from Short.
The club’s £83m wage bill was way out of proportion with on-field performances, but seven senior first-teamers are about to reach the end of their contracts, while Jermain Defoe has agreed to join Bournemouth on a free
transfer.t f Th The restt off th the squadd willill t takek 40% pay cuts next season with the exception of Jack Rodwell, whose contract did not include a clause reducing his wages on relegation.
The club does not have a manager at present after the resignation of David Moyes the day after the season ended.
Moyes did not think he could bring the club back into the top flight on the budget Short was offering.
Although Sunderland received £93m last season just for finishing bot- tom,t th they maded a £6.5m£6 5 net t l loss i in the transfer market in January, when it was clear there was a desperate need to improve the squad within the restraints of financial fair play rules.
Newcastle earned around £7m from television and prize money for winning the 2016-17 Championship. The Wearsiders will receive a parachute payment of around £55m to cushion the fall in revenue.
Chief executive Martin Bain, appointed last July, is overseeing a redundancyd d programme forf backb k office staff. Despite all these programmes, the report names Short’s asking price as £110m, “a figure which includes a hefty bonus in the event of promotion, retaining their status and other add-ons.” Short paid around £20m for the club.
It claims the un-named German consortium is hopeful of concluding a deal within the next fortnight, despite not having yet started due diligence.
The uncertainty over the club’s ownership will not be helping the recruitment of a new manager.
In the last few days, the other clubs relegated from the Premier League last season, Middlesbrough and Hull City, have both appointed new managers.
Boro’s, Garry Monk, is understood t to have talked to Sunderland too.
Watford have also appointed a new manager since Moyes resigned, creating the vacancy at Hull.
However, Leeds United and Crystal Palace have failed to replace Monk and Sam Allardyce respectively. The pair both quit their jobs – again over budgetary concerns – in the same w week as Moyes.
All prospective managers will want t to know the financial constraints they will be working within, and it is inconceivable the new owners would not w want to be consulted over the appointment, although it is claimed they would not have the final say.
Some of the candidates are currentl ly in jobs and Sunderland would therefore have to pay compensation to bring them to the Stadium of Light. The figure widely quoted for one of the front-runners, Aberdeen’s Derek McInnes and his assistant Tony Docherty, is £1m.
John O’Shea and Seb Larsson have been offered new contracts but with other options available to them, they too will be reluctant to commit at a time of such uncertainty and when the club released its retained list on Friday, neither could be added to it.