Failed Football Takeovers: 10 Deals That Collapsed and Why
From Sheikh Jassim’s Man United bid to Bury’s last-minute collapse, 10 football takeovers that fell apart and the money, rules and due diligence behind each.
Ownership & M&A From Old Trafford to Gigg Lane: The 10 Football Takeovers That Never Got Over the Line
A signed agreement is not a completed takeover. Between exclusivity and completion sit proof of funds, league ownership tests, lender consents and a seller who may change their mind. These 10 deals, from a multi-billion bid for Manchester United to a rescue that could have saved Bury, show exactly where football takeovers break down.
The pattern matters more now than ever. English clubs are increasingly reliant on owner money, with the Independent Football Regulator finding that 94% of clubs in the top five tiers are loss-making. When a buyer walks away, the club is often left funding a season it cannot afford. That is why the regulator's new ownership checks, paid for by the proposed £20.3m club levy , are aimed squarely at the failure points listed below.
1. Manchester United and Sheikh Jassim (2023)
The biggest takeover never to happen in English football. Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani bid for 100% of Manchester United, with his final offer reportedly close to double the club's $3.2bn market valuation . The bid was all cash, promised to clear existing debt and came with a further pledge of more than $1.7bn for the squad, facilities and community projects.
It still failed on price. After almost a year of process run by Raine, the Glazer family would not accept his number and he withdrew in October 2023, according to Al Jazeera . The club went instead to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who switched to buying a minority stake of around 25%, leaving the Glazers in place.
What went wrong: a seller who never fully wanted to sell. No amount of cash closes a deal when the owner's valuation and exit preference do not match the buyer's.
2. Everton and 777 Partners (2023 to 2024)
Miami-based 777 Partners agreed in September 2023 to buy Farhad Moshiri's 94.1% stake in Everton, expecting to complete by the end of that year. It never got there. The deal was repeatedly delayed as 777 failed to meet the Premier League's ownership conditions , and the share purchase agreement expired on 1 June 2024.
In the meantime 777 had been lending the club money to keep it running, which left Everton tied to a would-be owner that could not complete. The fallout has continued: the firm's founder has since pleaded guilty in a US criminal case , and 777's stakes across Europe and South America feature in our list of the biggest multi-club ownership groups .
What went wrong: a buyer whose funding structure could not satisfy the league, and a club that became dependent on that buyer's loans before the deal closed.
3. Everton and The Friedkin Group, first attempt (2024)
Weeks after 777 fell away, Dan Friedkin's group took exclusivity on Everton. A £200m injection covering working capital and the repayment of other lenders triggered that exclusivity period. Then, on 19 July 2024, the two sides announced talks were over.
The obstacle was the debt 777 had left behind. Reporting at the time pointed to the continued uncertainty around 777 and its main backer A-CAP as the issue Friedkin could not get past, with the Liverpool Echo linking it to a missed repayment on a £153m loan, according to Insider Sport . Friedkin stayed on as a lender, came back, and completed the purchase in December 2024. Less than two years later the group is exploring a sale of its own .
What went wrong: legacy creditors. A clean buyer still cannot close if the previous bidder's security sits over the asset.
4. Newcastle United and the Saudi-backed consortium (2020)
The first version of the Newcastle deal was a £300m agreement with Mike Ashley, signed in spring 2020 by a group made up of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, PCP Capital Partners and the Reuben Brothers. PIF was set to take around 80%.
The Premier League's owners' and directors' test focused on how closely PIF was tied to the Saudi state, while broadcast piracy of league matches in the region added pressure. On 30 July 2020 the consortium withdrew, saying the commercial agreement had expired during an unexpectedly long approval process . The same investors returned and completed the takeover in October 2021.
What went wrong: regulatory timing. The deal outlived its own contract while the league worked through questions of control.
5. Sheffield United and Dozy Mmobuosi (2022 to 2023)
Nigerian businessman Dozy Mmobuosi agreed a reported £115m deal with Prince Abdullah in late 2022 and placed close to £9m into an account controlled by the owner's holding company while the EFL reviewed the bid. The league asked repeated questions about his wealth and the deal stalled as United chased promotion.
It never cleared. The EFL was not satisfied he had the means to complete, according to The Star , and Prince Abdullah later hired Lazard to run a tighter sale process.
What went wrong: headline price without verified funds. A deposit is not proof that the balance exists.
6. AC Milan and Bee Taechaubol (2015 to 2016)
Thai investor Bee Taechaubol, known in Italy as Mr Bee, spent months courting Silvio Berlusconi. After a full bid of €1bn was rejected, the two agreed in June 2015 that Taechaubol would buy just under half the club for a reported €450m .
The money never arrived. Taechaubol reportedly failed to assemble the funding , and by 2016 Berlusconi had turned to a Chinese consortium instead.
What went wrong: a buyer raising capital after signing rather than before. Market conditions moved and the investor base did not follow.
7. Derby County and Chris Kirchner (2022)
With Derby in administration and docked 21 points, American businessman Chris Kirchner was named preferred bidder in April 2022 and exchanged contracts with administrators Quantuma on 16 May. The EFL had given conditional approval.
He then missed a 5pm deadline on 10 June to show he could complete, and withdrew his offer three days later, leaving the EFL publicly demanding a funding plan. Local developer David Clowes stepped in and bought the club for £33m. Kirchner was later sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States.
What went wrong: a preferred bidder chosen before funds were proven, in a process where every lost week cost the club money.
8. Reading and Rob Couhig, first attempt (2024)
Former Wycombe owner Rob Couhig passed the EFL's owners' and directors' test and put at least £5m into Reading to cover bills and wages. In September 2024 the deal collapsed anyway, because owner Dai Yongge did not complete the sale .
A legal dispute followed, with Dai claiming Couhig was blocking other buyers through security he held over the stadium and training ground. After the EFL disqualified Dai and ordered him to sell, Couhig's Redwood Holdings finally completed the purchase in May 2025.
What went wrong: the seller, not the buyer. Approval of the incoming owner means little if the outgoing one will not sign.
9. Wigan Athletic and Next Leader Fund (2020)
This one completed, which is what makes it instructive. The sale of Wigan from Hong Kong-based International Entertainment Corporation to the Cayman-registered Next Leader Fund closed on 4 June 2020. On 1 July the club entered administration.
Administrator Gerald Krasner of Begbies Traynor said the four-week gap was "a record that will stand for some time" . Wigan took a 12-point deduction and were relegated from the Championship, before a Bahrain-based group bought the club out of administration the following year.
What went wrong: ownership changed without any change in funding commitment. A completed transfer of shares is not the same as a funded business plan.
10. Bury and C&N Sporting Risk (2019)
The failed takeover with the heaviest cost. With Bury facing expulsion, owner Steve Dale accepted an offer from analytics company C&N Sporting Risk, and the EFL extended its deadline to 5pm on 27 August 2019 to allow the sale to close.
After due diligence, C&N pulled out roughly 90 minutes before the deadline. Its owners could not resolve a £3.7m mortgage over Gigg Lane or the wider state of the club's finances. That night the EFL withdrew Bury's membership after 125 years in the Football League , the first expulsion since Maidstone in 1992.
What went wrong: secured debt over the stadium that no buyer could clear in time, discovered too late for a rescue.
Read together, these deals fail at the same points: whether the money is real and committed, whether the regulator can see who controls it, and whether the asset is free of someone else's claims. The IFR now runs suitability checks on owners and directors and will license all 116 clubs in the top five tiers, with the stated aim of spotting financial risk before it becomes a crisis. Cases like Gateshead's sale to Flacks Group are among the first to go through that process. Debt sits at the centre of several collapses on this list, which is why the identity of a club's lenders increasingly matters as much as the identity of its buyer.
What the failures have in common
Very few of these deals failed because the buyer lost interest in the club. They failed because something in the capital stack could not be proven, approved or cleared on time: funds that did not exist, ownership that a league could not trace, a seller who would not sign, or a creditor with a claim over the ground.
For investors, the lesson is to do the hard work before exclusivity, not after. For clubs, it is to avoid becoming financially dependent on a bidder who has not completed. As institutional money, from private equity to sovereign funds, keeps moving into the game, the gap between an agreed deal and a closed one is where most of the risk now sits.