Gateshead FC Takeover: Flacks Group Deal Needs Football Regulator Approval
Miami’s Flacks Group has agreed to buy Gateshead FC after unpaid wages and a funding exit. The Independent Football Regulator must approve the deal.
A Turnaround Investor Moves for Gateshead, and the Regulator Holds the Key
Gateshead have agreed in principle to sell the club to Flacks Group, the investment company of Manchester-born businessman Michael Flacks, according to The Non-League Paper. Players and staff, who missed their September pay, are due to be paid straight away. The deal still needs approval from the Independent Football Regulator.
The sale ends a short but severe crisis. Mark Nellist, the club's main financial backer since its 2019 rescue, resigned as a director and withdrew his funding. Days later, manager Lee Cattermole left the club with the team bottom of the National League.
Who is Flacks Group?
Flacks Group describes itself as a privately owned family office that invests its own capital. It looks for carve-outs and distressed situations where a normal sale process has stalled, and buys companies with revenues between $50 million and $2 billion.
Its portfolio is mostly industrial. In 2024 it bought Artemyn from Imerys, a mining business with $400 million in revenue. In 2019 it made a £20 million approach for Laura Ashley that the retailer's controlling shareholders rejected. A fifth-tier football club is a very different asset, but the profile fits: a business in trouble that needed a fast answer.
A club with a long record of ownership trouble
This is not Gateshead's first crisis. In 2019, under owner Ranjan Varghese, players went unpaid and the club was evicted from its stadium over debts to the council. In 2024 it finished sixth but was barred from the play-offs because its stadium lease did not meet EFL rules.
The latest episode also shows how one funder can hold up a whole club. Nellist had agreed to pass his shares to Paylor. But Paylor could not fund the club alone, and another interested party pulled back. The club's own May update had already flagged that Paylor's role was limited until the regulator completed its checks.
The regulator has already shown it will act at this level of the game. In July, Morecambe became the first club to face action from it. Gateshead is now an early test of a different kind: how quickly the new regime can approve a rescue buyer when a club has no time to spare.
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