After Fulham, Manchester City and Portsmouth were taken over by Middle East businessmen, there were bets being taken as to who the next club would be. However, you would have got long odds on the fact that it would be League Two strugglers Notts County!
But after Mohammed Al-Fayed at Craven Cottage, Abu Dhabi billionaire Sulaiman al-Fahim at
Portsmouth and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan at
Manchester City comes Munto Finance Ltd to rescue the world’s oldest club.
County certainly aren’t a glamour proposition, spending the last five seasons flirting with relegation to the Blue Square Premier League. Last season they finished 19th and the previous four campaigns have seen them finish 21st, 13th, 21st and 19th respectively.
Their history might be long but it certainly isn’t illustrious, with an FA Cup success in 1894 their only major trophy. The last time they graced the top flight was in 1992. Nevertheless, as chairman John Armstrong-Holmes reasons, why wouldn’t a group of wealthy businessmen pump money into Meadow Lane?
“
Manchester United are probably about a billion pounds in debt, something like that I hear, they have to spend about 50 million pounds plus a year just to service that debt,” he said.
"
Liverpool were 300 million pounds in debt, they want another 300 million pounds or more for their new stadium, so when you look at Notts County as a proposition, rather than those propositions, what a success story.
"You can take the world's oldest football league club, progress it through the leagues gradually with a common sense approach, rather than throw all that money into a banker's pot or someone else's pot."
Bookmakers have taken note of the proposed takeover with odds being slashed from 25/1 down to 16/1 for the League Two title. Armstrong-Holmes needs the deal to be ratified by shareholders but the Magpies chairman is convinced this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for County supporters.
He added: "It will be historic for the club if it goes through. It still needs to be finalised but we are at a very advanced stage. We have worked very hard to bring this deal together.
"We might be a League Two club but we are Notts County, we are the oldest League club in the world. We are a club with a rich history, and that is why we have been able to attract investment from the Middle East. I would urge the Trust members to get behind this and vote in favour of it when they get the chance. They have a chance to be part of an historic deal."
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