Derby County takeover: Ex-Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has a plan to turn Rams into a Premier League powerhouse

Mike Ashley’s return to football is a thudding inevitability.

The former Newcastle owner is circling Derby and given the club itself is circling the drain, with more than £80m of debts, his comeback will prove a timely one.

Those who know him think he plans to cut through the club’s complex debt situation, squeeze the administrators and creditors for the best possible deal and – most likely – ride in on a charger to rescue a club standing precipitously close to the brink.

It should be no surprise. Ashley was never done with football, privately believes his time at Newcastle was a qualified success and has people around him who think there is scope to remodel one of the Championship’s “distressed assets” into a Premier League powerhouse.

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Given pretty much every club in the second tier is informally for sale, Ashley had his pick of clubs. But you can see why Derby, given their current predicament, piqued his interest. It is a club of rich potential, with a fine support, an infrastructure that will require little investment (something Ashley resisted at Newcastle) and a manager in Wayne Rooney who brings a sprinkle of stardust.

It pre-dated the Derby link, but a source close to Ashley told i that the former Newcastle owner “still has something to give in football”.

“His business model isn’t a bad one,” they said. “It’s just better suited for a club in the Championship trying to get promoted than it is for a club in the Premier League trying to improve”.

This source believes Ashley simply didn’t engage the right people on Tyneside, listening to those who knew little of the game in those early days. “He didn’t understand football and what he found out he invariably didn’t like,” they added. By the time he had got to grips with it, the die was cast and he gave up trying to be popular.

That is giving Ashley a sizeable benefit of the doubt. His mistakes at Newcastle can’t all be pinned on naivety or simply being swamped by Sovereign Wealth Funds he was unwilling to go to battle with in the Premier League.

When the fan-led review into football governance dropped last season, the Newcastle United Supporters Trust featured prominently in the evidence cited.

Ashley’s Newcastle was the perfect example of a club that fell between the cracks when it came to football governance. Newcastle’s owner would always point to the responsible way he kept finances in check at St James’ Park, putting money into the club when it needed it, cutting costs and ensuring the club’s wage costs never toppled above a manageable level.

Very early on he championed sustainability, a cause that he had in common with reformers who want an independent regulator in football. But that is where attempts to portray Ashley as a model owner come to a crashing halt.

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He ran a club that was unaccountable, cold and disengaged from its supporters. Newcastle did not do the bare minimum when it came to working with supporters on his watch, and he allowed the stadium and training ground to grow dated, to the extent his successor in charge Amanda Staveley branded it “really awful”.

He didn’t listen, gave the impression of someone who didn’t care and empowered the wrong people to make decisions. St James’ Park was a billboard for his company, starving commercial revenue and draining the institution of ambition. It was a disaster.

But Ashley had the kernel of an idea at Newcastle which Derby fans should cling to: sustainability.

It shouldn’t be a dirty word in football and, done right, the Rams will benefit from it. Unlike previous investors who have made big noises on social media, there will be no doubts that he has the funds to transform the club and underwrite its losses.

Those who have worked with him call him a “genius” on the numbers. Derby will not struggle to pay the bills and he also, remember, made a very tidy profit on Newcastle despite their decline on his watch and a global pandemic which should have depressed valuations.

If he empowers the right people, allows smart communicators to promote an honest and transparent business plan, he could yet have a successful second act in football.

It shouldn’t come to this and the hope is that football’s long-overdue fan-led review will, in the long-term, ensure fans don’t have to make such unenviable choices between unpopular owners and unknown investors. But in Derby’s perilous position it feels they have little to lose from giving Ashley a chance.

from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3HQvUIv