Former Wolves owner Steve Morgan and ex-Derby chairman Andy Appleby are considering a joint bid to buy the Rams out of administration and save them from liquidation.
Mike Ashley remains the favourite to get his hands on the stricken League One club. But Morgan and Appleby are understood to be exploring the possibility of working together to try to beat the former Newcastle owner to a deal with administrators Quantuma. Morgan and Appleby have been put together by ex-Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey. He has been involved in American Appleby’s bid to buy Derby and knows Morgan well from their days working together at Molineux.
A joint bid will give the two businessmen more leverage against Ashley, although the billionaire Sports Direct boss still has the financial clout to outbid them if he wishes to. If Ashley does get his hands on Derby, then Lee Charnley, the managing director of Newcastle during his ownership, will be handed a similar role at the East Midlands club. The situation remains fraught and highly complex, though, with the EFL desperate for a resolution to the whole tawdry mess.
It is hoped that a deal to take Derby out of administration will be struck before Thursday, when the 2022-23 EFL fixtures are released, although EFL sources say no deadline has been set and that interested parties will be given time to conclude a deal beyond that date. Derby have been in turmoil since owner Mel Morris plunged them into administration in September — arguably for longer.
Morris handpicked Quantuma to handle the Rams’ administration and has retained a heavy involvement in all negotiations because he still owns Pride Park Stadium, the club’s home ground. It is Morris’s ownership of the stadium that has arguably proved the biggest stumbling block to any deal being completed.
American businessman Chris Kirchner, who was given preferred bidder status by the Quantuma in April, was unable to afford the £22million Morris wanted for the stadium on top of the money needed to take the football side of the business out of administration. Local businessman David Clowes appeared to have come to the rescue with an offer to buy the stadium and lease it to Kirchner and his backers if they could get their deal to buy the club over the line.
However, after around two months of preferred bidder status, Kirchner, who had the backing of boss Wayne Rooney and his camp, failed to complete his transaction and officially walked away from the deal last Monday. It was a major embarrassment for the EFL, who had given him conditional approval to buy the club and, through chief executive Trevor Birch, are now taking a more active role than ever in Derby’s sale.
Kirchner’s decision opened the door again for Ashley, Morgan and Appleby, and the three men and their investors have been working hard to try to thrash out deals. Ashley has made it clear he wants to buy the club and the stadium, and that having to lease the ground from a third party is a non-starter for him. He is also at war with the administrators, insisting he won’t pay their fees if he does buy the club, and last week he launched a High Court claim against Quantuma’s chief executive Carl Jackson.
