Sunderland tick all the right boxes for Turki Alalshikh buyout plan
Football finance expert Rob Wilson reckons Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh should buy play-off finalists Sunderland. He believes as a sleeping giant, Alalshikh would be on to a good thing on Wearside.
Dr Wilson, a director of executive education at University Campus of Football Business, believes The Black Cats and Sheffield Wednesday are the two standout clubs the Middle Eastern businessman should invest in.
Speaking to OLBG, Wilson said: “Turki Alalshikh will be looking for scale. Alongside scale, he’ll also be looking for big upsides and I think more interestingly, probably a narrative proposition that we’ve seen at Wrexham where you can actually build a story.
“From an investment perspective, the work we do at Invest in Soccer would kind of suggest we start matching them up with clubs that have got large latent fan bases, probably slightly more modern infrastructure.
“I think this is the critical bit, a clear runway to the Premier League. So that will rule out some Championship clubs, partially because of parachute payments and partially because of club size.
“The obvious premium play if you were able to get it would be a club like Leeds United but I think they are now pretty well off the market. If you’re not looking at Leeds, and this is where I probably agree with Simon Jordan to a certain extent, then I’d be looking at Sheffield Wednesday.
“A hugely historic club but financially a very difficult package to put together. Or then you’re looking at a club perhaps like Sunderland, maybe mainly from the narrative perspective because of the Netflix documentary.
“Both those two clubs have significant and critically historic fan bases. Large stadiums with the potential to put 30-40,000 fans in every week. In my opinion, they are underperforming assets with that emotional equity baked in. So they really are sleeping giants, so to speak.”
He added: “You’d avoid the likes of Rotherham, perhaps QPR, too small in scale. Blackburn, Middlesbrough, good solid clubs, really lack that media glamour and you don’t really have that narrative proposition that you can potentially add to them.
“For any investment proposition, it won’t be just about promotion immediately. It’ll be about building a club that can be globally marketed and perhaps therefore tied to the Saudi investment ambitions that we’ve seen them take in sports.
“Going back to Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland with that kind of Netflix documentary exposure, that kind of ticks more boxes than most people realise just because it doesn’t always yield revenue on the profit and loss account, does actually generate significant global and digital footprints that are really important.
“In terms of money, though, he’s going to need to probably spend upwards of a kind of 100 million plus to extract one of those clubs. Then you’re probably talking about routine cash investments of 30 to 50 million to cover Championship losses until you get that promotion.
“The reality of that financial ladder is fairly stark. To do it properly over a sustained period of time and comply with the profit and sustainability regulations, you probably need to be putting together a kind of 300 million pound package, hence the likes of Leeds United, although I think they’re off the table, Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland, probably the standout opportunities.”
