Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan has rejected bids from Bournemouth and Burnley bosses to buy his Belgian team KV Kortrijk, but reports suggest his preference would be to sell the club.
Tan, who took over the Jupiler Pro League in 2015, has been fighting fires at both Cardiff and Kortrijk this season, with both teams battling against relegation. The two teams are now safe in their respective leagues – the Championship and Belgian top flight.
However, the last week has seen Kortrijk endure turmoil, with chairman Ronny Verhelst and general manager Matthias Leterme both announcing they would leave the club, citing an "unreasonable attitude" from their Malaysian owner as one of the deciding factors, according to Flemmish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.
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The team's manager, Bernd Storck, had already left the club, leaving Kortrijk without a number of senior figures ahead of what looks like a huge summer restructure.
The report adds that Tan would prefer to sell the club, which he purchased for around €5million eight years ago. And there has been interest, too.
Het Nieuwsblad claim Premier League side Bournemouth and Premier League-bound Burnley have both seen bids knocked back by Cardiff owner Tan and that the asking price for the sale of the club has risen from €12m (£10.5m) to €17.5m (£15.3m). The report states that Bournemouth were put off by the infrastructure and Burnley's interest cooled because the price was pushed up.
With the club clearly mired in uncertainty, KVK supporters are understandably concerned about the future of their team.
Cardiff CEO Ken Choo, who holds the same post at Kortrijk, told Het Nieuwsblad: “I get a lot of calls from Belgium. I can reassure everyone: everything will be fine.
“In the near future I will return to Belgium and I will clarify.”
While reports in Belgium state that Tan is actively looking to sell up at Kortrijk, Cardiff remains the jewel in his football empire, which also includes FK Sarajevo, who are a respectable third in the Bosnia and Herzegovina top flight.
As recently as this week, Bluebirds chairman Mehmet Dalman reiterated Tan's commitment to Cardiff and brushed aside any notion that the owner would look to countenance a sale soon.
"I'm not Vincent Tan, so I can't speak for him," said Dalman. "But what I can tell you is he continues to support this club, writes the cheques. Every year people ask me whether he is still committed to Cardiff City and I do wonder why they do that because the answer is always the same.
"He is 100 per cent on board from what I see. We know we still have work to do here, although at least the horrible pressure of looking down towards League One has gone. What we need to do is ensure this doesn't happen again."
Tan is expected to fly into the UK this weekend to hold talks with manager Sabri Lamouchi about his future, with the Frenchman's contract set to expire after Monday's game with Burnley.
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