Middlesbrough FC owner Steve Gibson has rejected a £50m bid from a Chinese consortium to buy half of the club. Gibson has no interest in selling the club he has owned since 1993 and to which he has devoted considerable sums of money.
Middlesbrough FC owner Steve Gibson has rejected a £50m bid from a Chinese consortium to buy half of the club. Gibson has no interest in selling the club he has owned since 1993 and to which he has devoted considerable sums of money.
He did meet Chien Lee, the Chinese-American billionaire who held a controlling stake in Nice, but talks centred on a possible commercial link. Chinese representatives have visited the stadium and the training ground.
Gibson masterminded the building of the Riverside Stadium in 1996, what was at the time a state of the art facility and is still a valuable asset, as well as the Rockliffe Park training complex near Darlington, which opened in 1998.
He recently wrote off £100m of debt owed by the club and during the years in the Championship he was subsidising the club by £1m a month.