Whispers of a takeover at St Andrew’s appeared without warning in the Sunday papers and have caused considerable discussions amongst fans in the few hours since their release.
One person significantly not taking part in public discussions on this matter is David Sullivan. He is remaining tight-lipped about any possibility of moving on from the club that he and the Golds bought 14 years ago.
As the rules for buying and selling football clubs stand, there needs to be no public announcement until the deal is all but done.
The Stock Exchange must be informed and David Sullivan has already been quoted as saying that any change in ownership of the club would be discussed and lodged with them according to current practice.
It is interesting to note that the club have been careful not to issue any denials, which has been picked up very quickly by the fans.
Harking back to last season, Sullivan gave a number of signals that he was ready to move on, notably in press interviews when he confessed his exasperation with criticisms that the Board and Steve Bruce were receiving from the fans at the time.
Thoughts of a change in ownership has, unsurprisingly, raised a wide range of comments.
While some are cautiously optimistic and feel that the club has reached an impasse under the current regime, some are just plain cautious and are afraid that foreign investors will regard the club as a Premiership cash cow and rip the heart out of it.
The fear of future debt is keen; since the arrival of the present owners, Birmingham City has been run as a fairly tight ship and is financially sound as football clubs go.
There are few fans that don’t fear their club ‘doing a Leeds’ and this is a real concern if a foreign investor should arrive, spend unwisely, then pull out when the going gets slightly tough.
On the other hand, fresh investment could mean the removal of the transfer fee shackles, allowing Birmingham to attempt to compete in the Premiership beyond mere survival tactics.
It could be argued that the Premiership needs wider investment to give the ‘big four’ more competition and the most obvious way for this to happen will involve more foreign ownership of more clubs.
As the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle and now Manchester City are being snapped up, a club of the likes of Birmingham, based in a massive urban area could be a target and indeed, David Gold remarked comparatively recently that the club could be ripe for takeover.
It will be interesting to watch how quickly this story develops, as a takeover could be accomplished within a matter of weeks.
However, to be able to get moving in the transfer market before the start of the new season, any deal would need to be sewn up quickly or would possibly involve the current owners buying new players ‘in good faith’ on behalf of a new regime.
The arrival of new owners could make the positions of Karren Brady and Steve Bruce less than certain. Brady may opt to leave immediately, but as Bruce is on a two-year rolling contract he may be given a period of grace to see how the team performs at Premiership level.
Further developments on this will be keenly awaited.
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