One of Mike Ashley’s senior executives has confirmed the former Newcastle owner is fully committed to buying Derby County, but he is becoming increasingly frustrated with delays obstructing a possible takeover.
In an exclusive interview with Sky Sports News, Keith Bishop, Ashley’s head of PR, says Derby’s debts and the complexity of a deal to buy the club “doesn’t frighten him”, but he admits “the clock is ticking” if a deal is to be done to avoid Derby going into liquidation.
“He is 100 per cent interested in buying the club,” said Bishop.”He wants the Derby fans to know he is very much interested.
“He sees it as a club that could do really well, obviously it’s not doing very well at the moment, but with his business acumen, he believes he could really turn it around.
– [EFL feels Boro and Wycombe claims against Derby are football debts]
– [Holmes and Rhodes strike late to break Derby resistance]
– [How to watch Championship live on Sky]
“He’s still a very rich man, who has got the funds to put into the club, and he has got the business acumen to change things there.
Trending
– [Transfer Centre LIVE! Haaland, Lingard, Rice latest]
– [Lampard: So long as Dele produces, I’m happy]
– [Moyes: Rice worth more than £100m | He’s a future England captain]
– [Man Utd transfer hits and misses under Woodward]
– [Lingard in Man Utd squad for Burnley | Rangnick: No problem between us]
– [Man Utd top Europe for transfer spending over last 10 years]
– [F1’s first ‘launch week’ as new cars debut | Aston, McLaren live on Sky]
– [Why haven’t Man Utd scored from a corner in a year?]
– [Papers: Barcelona to rival Chelsea for Kounde?]
– [Overmars leaves Ajax over ‘inappropriate messages’]
“If I were a Derby fan I’d be very happy.And from the response we are getting, there are a lot of fans who want him to come in and take the club over.
“With where they are now, they deserve a lot better.And that’s what he can do.”
Ashley is one of three potential buyers interested in taking over at Pride Park, though the situation is extremely complex, and that is a source of frustration.
Debts of over £60m , legal claims from Middlesbrough and Wycombe worth potentially £40m, and complexities over the stadium which is not owned by the club, are all serious stumbling blocks.
“Mike is a solution-maker,” Bishop added.”He seeks out things like this, it doesn’t frighten him.He’s also liked Derby for a number of years, he knows about their past – the 70s and 80s, the Cloughie years – and he knows about the fans, who are a good set of fans.
“We’ve had a lot of emails recently from Derby fans saying they want him to take over, which has also pleased him obviously.”
Towards the end of his time in charge of Newcastle, Ashley became a figure of hate to the majority of fans in the North East.
So why would he want to risk being targeted with a similar level of abuse again?
Bishop replied: “He had the club for 14 years and at the start he really enjoyed it.
“Obviously things didn’t go well towards the end, but he said at the time he would sell the club to someone who could really take it to the next level and he sold it to a country, rather than an individual.
“He’s a rich individual, but not one that could take Newcastle where it needed to be, so that’s what he did.
“At Newcastle, he did get things right off the pitch.I think he might say he never got it quite right on the pitch, but off the pitch, he did.
“And I think that’s what Derby needs right now – someone who knows football, but is also a good businessman.
And he sees that.
“He’s got an idea that he can really turn it around, and that’s why he wants to get involved.There are other clubs as well, but Derby is the one he’s been looking at for a while.”
Almost two weeks ago, Derby were granted a month’s extension to prove to the EFL they have the necessary funds to see out the remainder of this season’s fixtures.
Since then, there has been no public statement of progress from Derby’s administrators, and Ashley is keen to push things along as quickly as possible.
“The clock is ticking,” warned Bishop.”If anyone bought it now, it would take almost 12 weeks to get it done, and so that takes us nearly into May [if someone were to buy the club now].
“So there are frustrations all the way round, which I can’t really go into.But he would like to get these frustrations sorted and move forward.
“He’s always hopeful.We’ve been involved in many deals over the years – some you win, some you don’t.I know he would like to do it but you can never guarantee anything.”.
