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Manchester City have revealed that they are the next Premiership club to be a takeover target, although it is unclear at this stage whether the potential owner is foreign or not. The chief executive of the cash strapped club, Alastair Mackintosh, said the club had been looking to bring in investment for some time, but stressed any deal was a long way off. 'I think comparing it to a 90-minute fooball match we are 10 minutes in', he said. 'There's a long way to go, a lot of due diligence to be undertaken. What we've always looked to do is to bring in extra investment into the club, so frankly, we can invest in the team and spend more on players. We want to push the club forward so we can match the ambitions of the fans'. Indeed, some football fans call City 'the Massives' because their ambitions are so substantial but rarely realised, living as they do under the shadow of Manchester United. Chairman John Wardle emphasised, 'Anyone coming to the table has got to be an appropriate custodian of the club. We need to understand more about the investor or set of investors we are talking to to make sure they are appropriate custodians for the club.' These remarks would seem to imply an unfamiliar foreign investor.
City were immediately placed in an 'offer period' by the Takeover Panel. The chairman and his business partner, David Makin, are prepared to sell their 29.95 per cent shareholding in the club which is valued at £70 million. Wardle commented, 'The board is aware that we need further investment to maintain our challenge in an increasingly competitive and high-finance Premier League.' This is the point that my doctor, a City shareholder, has been making for some time and this season the club have always looked potentially at risk of relegation again to me. Last time they went down they ended up in what is now League 1 and I remember driving past coaches full of grim faced City fans after they returned from a 1-1 away draw at mighty Chesterfield. Investors in recent years who have expressed an interest in City include Inge Steensland, the Norwegian shipping magnate and, more recently, John Cauldwell, the billionaire founder of Phones4U. City recorded an operating profit of £5.1m in the year ending 31 May but have a debt of £32.2m excluding loans received from Wardle and Mann. Under the right ownership the club could prosper given that there is plenty of room for extra fans at the City of Manchester stadium.
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