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Takeover News/Rumours

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wigwams said:
The Athletic articles are usually the journos indulging themselves with a bit of fact thrown in. Remember when it took about 8 of them to do an explosive piece on us in the summer which turned out to be nothing of the sort?
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Yep. Can't believe it's seen as some sort of high end journalism outlet. The vast majority of what I've seen from them is, as you say, self indulgent waffle.
 
The Cabbage said:
Disagree. This is about who Louis-Dreyfus is more than anything else. It's interesting background and at least provides some straws to clutch should the deal be completed.
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I found it interesting.

It was fairly instructive about why he may like the idea of us and how he may plan to run us. It doesn't sound like he would plan to immediately throw money at the situation as some billionaires do to overcome their incompetence (cough). If he has a plan, and can actually dip into a cash reserve if it was needed, then that's fine with me.
 
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Thatheaderman said:
Mmmm. Generally it's because of copyright but naming source covers that.

But they the bosses :)
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Yeah for free sources you’re supposed to name the source for copyright. We’re not supposed to post verbatim from sources that are paywalled even though whenever I’ve opened an athletic article it’s been free 🤷‍♂️
KittenMittens said:
I found it interesting.

It was fairly instructive about why he may like the idea of us and how he may plan to run us. It doesn't sound he would plan to immediately throw money at the situation as some billionaires do to overcome their incompetence (cough). If he has a plan, and can actually dip into a cash reserve if it was needed, then that's fine with me.
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Actually made me a little more confident in him of nowt else
 
The Cabbage said:
Disagree. This is about who Louis-Dreyfus is more than anything else. It's interesting background and at least provides some straws to clutch should the deal be completed.
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One of the authors of the piece is the excellent Michael Walker, who has worked the NE beat for several leading newspapers and wrote the outstanding book ‘Up There North East Football Boom and Bust’ (2014).
For that reason alone I believe the article is truthful and sincere. From past articles I believe Walker has a soft spot for SAFC too.
 
KittenMittens said:
The new intake is usually mainly American and sometimes there are boys from glitzy Hollywood families who have enrolled on
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In 2017, two teenagers from France enrolled, one was named Philippe and the other Kyril. The latter is Kyril Louis-Dreyfus.

Students on the RIASA course at Leeds Beckett University live in halls of residence on the campus in the Headingley district of the city. They learn and train there and RIASA has teams playing in the local leagues and also arranges higher-profile friendlies against EFL clubs such as Bradford City and Sheffield Wednesday. Some players advance from there into professional football, such as Bristol City striker Nahki Wells and Colorado Rapids’ US international forward Jonathan Lewis.

Others, though, concentrate on the academic side and play recreationally. They take up different roles, such as Matt Reda, who is now in charge of corporate development at the lower-divisions United Soccer League in Florida. Kyril Louis-Dreyfus was one of these.


“He worked hard, played in central midfield, tidy on the ball,” remembers Rob Jones, the former Hibernian, Grimsby Town and Doncaster defender who was the lead coach on the course at the time.

“Kyril was never going to reach a professional level but he knew that — he was mature in that sense. He’s a lovely guy. I think he’d just come out of military school in France and joined RIASA. He was doing his degree in the football industry. We had him for a year, a lovely guy, down to earth, loves his football. It’s a big passion for him. You can see his background with Marseille and his father and family.

“He was very knowledgeable about football, about individuals — just passionate about the game, really. It was nice to see. He was doing sport and business and management, it was all together.

“Kyril listened, and he was always asking questions about formations and styles. There was an interest there. He was asking about coaching sessions, strength and conditioning sessions, how things fit together on and off the pitch. His interest was the all-encompassing football world.

“He was in Leeds for a year and then he moved down to the campus in Richmond in London to finish off the academic side.”

Although he did not socialise a lot with the other students, Louis-Dreyfus mixed easily within his peer group. He advertised neither his status nor his wealth, but among the students, there was talk of him taking a private jet from Leeds-Bradford airport back to Switzerland on weekends. Gradually, those on the course and those who ran it understood what the Louis-Dreyfus name meant.

“We became aware as he progressed,” Jones says. “It was not something that he made known, he kept it quiet. He just wanted to fit in and his degree was his priority.

“He was very driven, knew what he wanted to do. Routine-wise, he very good, very set, focused on the academic side. He didn’t socialise too much, he had a good buddy with him from France also on the course, Philippe. A lot of the time Kyril was back and forth to home.”

Louis-Dreyfus did not complete the full four-year degree course, RIASA says. He did two years of it but it was another sign that he was thinking about football as part of his future.
“It was a shock to see (Louis-Dreyfus linked with Sunderland) at first,” says Jones, now coaching down the road at Middlesbrough’s academy. “But then you think about him and it’s not a surprise if he goes down that route. He was very interested in football as a whole, the off-field as much as what’s on it. And he has a background in that environment.

“Obviously he’s an unknown entity in the football world — so far — but then
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You would take it as a positive that the young man wants to invest in Sunderland. He’s a forward-thinker.”

Back in Sunderland, there is still a wariness.

The proposed retention of Donald, albeit as a minority shareholder, has left the club’s followers asking questions. A survey conducted by fan-group Red And White Army in July revealed 90 per cent of supporters wanted the current regime to sell up and Donald told BBC Radio Newcastle in the summer he was “desperately trying to get out”.

It has become a marriage all parties want annulled. Donald has steadfastly sought a precise asking price of £37.6 million before he walks away, with a financial picture complicated by a £9 million loan taken out from US investors FPP.

Defaulting on repayments would hand control of Sunderland to FPP, a company established by three American billionaires, Glenn Fuhrman, John Phelan and Robert Platek, who have links to computer mogul Michael Dell. The loan, taken out last October, was secured against the Stadium of Light and Academy of Light, and any sale of shares in Sunderland would require either approval from FPP or the loan to be paid back in full.

Donald has effectively spent most of his two and a half years in charge of Sunderland either seeking fresh investment or a new buyer. Failure to win promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt eroded his bargaining power and popularity. The appetite for change is now enormous.

Manager Phil Parkinson, a canny operator in these surroundings, might well do enough to take Sunderland up this season but it is a club craving a fresh drive and impetus that only a takeover can bring.

Parkinson said before the Doncaster game that takeover talks were “progressing” and the next week could turn out to be decisive.

Having a new owner who is the same age as the Stadium of Light itself would be unconventional but Louis-Dreyfus is a fascinating figure on the horizon.


Didn't know that was a rule, sorry chaps.
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Cheers for that, buzzing reading that what a unique club we can turn out to be!
 
The Beautiful Game said:
Yeah for free sources you’re supposed to name the source for copyright. We’re not supposed to post verbatim from sources that are paywalled even though whenever I’ve opened an athletic article it’s been free 🤷‍♂️

Actually made me a little more confident in him of nowt else
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The problem is them making it free to you is on their terms, you don't have the right to then make it free to others on your own terms.

I prefer to copy paste the entire article to a site like pastebin.com and then link to that on here.

Sites like The athletic scan the web for their article text appearing on third party sites and then send warnings to the site owners, which is why this forum will be proactive in removing infringing content.

If you host the text elsewhere and link to it you're less likely to get RTG in trouble
 
Sons of The Wear said:
One of the authors of the piece is the excellent Michael Walker, who has worked the NE beat for several leading newspapers and wrote the outstanding book ‘Up There North East Football Boom and Bust’ (2014).
For that reason alone I believe the article is truthful and sincere. From past articles I believe Walker has a soft spot for SAFC too.
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Had that book infront of me when I was deciding a username...
 
KittenMittens said:
The Athletic: (2 posts as it's too long)

Sunderland failed to win again on Saturday. Leading 1-0 at Doncaster Rovers, they conceded an equaliser three minutes into second-half stoppage time to draw 1-1. After losing at home to MK Dons the week before, Sunderland are eighth in League One and becoming part of the furniture in their third season in the third tier.

Doncaster’s equaliser was met with weariness in Sunderland. There is pessimism about the team, the state of the club and its direction. “Dismal” was the Saturday night verdict from fans’ site Roker Report.

But there is one hope. In the south of France, Saturday’s game is likely to have been monitored by a 23-year-old named Kyril Louis-Dreyfus. He is understood to be considering taking on a majority shareholding in Sunderland. The club declined to comment when approached by The Athletic but chief executive Jim Rodwell said last month they had a preferred bidder currently in a period of exclusivity.

Nothing is certain and supporter scepticism is high when it comes to anything to do with the current ownership. Other alleged takeovers have already come and gone. There is also audible local concern that someone so young could be taking over an institution formed in 1879.

(Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
Yet even at the tender age of 23, Louis-Dreyfus may have been preparing for this moment for several years already. He does not appear to be a novice. This is someone who was brought up at French heavyweights Marseille and who went to Yorkshire to study the game and the football industry.

Most importantly for Sunderland, his interest is said to be sincere and serious.

Louis-Dreyfus is anything but an ordinary young man. The son of Margarita and Robert, he is one of three heirs to the Louis Dreyfus Company. Their worldwide empire has involvement in agriculture, food processing and international shipping, and amassed sales worth £33.6 billion in its most recent financial year.

“Was he groomed from a very early age to take on responsibility? Absolutely,” says a well-positioned source. “Margarita wanted to make sure their children would not be stupid, just spending daddy’s money. It would’ve gone against their father’s personality to be like that.

“They wanted them to be well-rounded individuals who have travelled an awful lot, to learn how difficult it was in the business world.”

Margarita told Bloomberg in a rare interview in 2012 that Kyril and his twin bother Maurice had been taken to Brazil during a school break to tour the family’s ports, plantations and juice factories. There have also been educational trips to Russia and a year at boarding school in Singapore.

Louis-Dreyfus, however, also has football in the blood. His late father Robert was Marseille’s largest shareholder from 1996 until his death from leukaemia in 2009, when control of the club was handed to Margarita.

It was then, during Kyril’s teenage years, that the bug bit. Although elder brother Eric and twin Maurice rarely showed a prolonged interest in the fortunes of Marseille, Kyril is said to have wanted little more than to be in the bosom of his boyhood club. An internship was spent at Marseille’s training ground, officially the Centre d’entrainement Robert Louis-Dreyfus but known as La Commanderie, when still at school: one of his tasks was to drive staff around in golf buggies from one location to another.

Sources say Vincent Labrune, the club’s former president, became a father figure to him, inviting the youngster along to see transfers and contracts being negotiated.

“Kyril has a clear understanding of the football world because of Vincent,” one source told The Athletic. “He saw all the good things but all the bad things also. Agents, money, who goes and stays. Good buys, bad buys. He saw everything.” He watched the tumultuous reign of Marcelo Bielsa unfold at close hand when the Leeds United manager spent just over a year at the Stade Velodrome.

Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy, who played for Marseille between 2013 and 2016, and current vice-captain Florian Thauvin are also said to regard Louis-Dreyfus as a younger brother, such was his presence around the first-team squad.

Louis-Dreyfus told France Football magazine in 2015 he would regularly travel between Marseille and Geneva, where he attended school, to watch his family club and in 2012 he took that devotion further. Although he was by then attending boarding school in Singapore, he travelled back to Europe to see Marseille seal a famous Champions League victory over Inter Milan in the last 16. “That was worth it!” he said.

Louis-Dreyfus is understood to be a compulsive player of Football Manager, the popular computer game, and there have been long-standing ambitions to step into an industry that shaped his upbringing.


Despite Margarita Louis-Dreyfus selling Marseille to Frank McCourt in 2016, a five per cent stake was held back for Kyril. Previous takeover talks with Gerard Lopez, now the owner of fellow French top-flight side Lille, reportedly collapsed when the Spanish businessman declined to let the Louis-Dreyfus family retain a minority shareholding.

Marseille has significance to the Louis-Dreyfus family and, as such, there have been supporters wondering if the natural lineage was for Kyril to retake his father’s old position as owner. Didier Deschamps, head coach of France’s world-champion national team, has even admitted to floating the idea of succession with the young heir.

“The Louis-Dreyfus family had a lot of problems before they sold but I’m certain he still knows every player — who is good and who is bad,” said one source. “He loves Marseille but he thinks Sunderland is better because it is interesting and also quieter. He will try to apply some ideas he has on football business but also grow up with the club.”

Privately, there is optimism Louis-Dreyfus can secure a deal that would introduce him to English football from the banks of the Wear. Reports in L’Equipe, the renowned French sports newspaper, have even suggested Louis-Dreyfus has already considered who he wants to become sporting director at the Stadium of Light. The potential of Sunderland is said to be the attraction; an opportunity to rebuild a club who already have both a modern stadium and a training ground fit for the Premier League.

“He will not spend like an oligarch,” says a source. “This is not like buying a helicopter. It’s rational. It will be a project. He is passionate about football and he sees this project as interesting. He is taking it very seriously. He will not come into it to lose money.”



(Top photo: Xavier Laine/Getty Images)
The thread linking Louis-Dreyfus to Sunderland is Juan Sartori, a Uruguayan businessman and politician whose Russian father-in-law, Dmitry Rybolovlev, owns Monaco, neighbours and rivals of Marseille. Sartori, who married Rybolovlev’s daughter Ekaterina on the family’s privately-owned Greek island of Skorpios in 2015, has owned 20 per cent of Sunderland since the summer of 2018 but has largely been an enigmatic figure.

Sartori initially revelled in the experience of joining Sunderland’s apparent revival in League One. He regularly sat among supporters with owner Stewart Donald, even wearing a microphone
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during an away game at Charlton Athletic in January 2019.


He was also the beaming board member happily posing for selfies and hoisted in the air as supporters partied in Trafalgar Square on the eve of the EFL Trophy final loss to Portsmouth at Wembley in March 2019.

By the end of that season, when Sunderland also lost the League One play-off final to Charlton, Sartori had purposefully become a more distant presence. Political ambitions at home in Uruguay were calling.

A background in business and a move into politics with the right-leaning National Party brought comparisons to Donald Trump and, like the outgoing US President, there was a defeat at the polls.

Luis Lacalle Pou comfortably won the race to become the National Party’s candidate for last year’s general election ahead of Sartori and was subsequently voted in as Uruguay’s president. Sartori instead became a senator in the environment commission this past February.

Sartori was often touted as the man to increase his investment in Sunderland by Donald but his political ambitions in Uruguay have demanded another figure joins him in taking control at the Stadium of Light. Louis-Dreyfus, a figure well-known to Sartori, is now positioning himself to become that new force.
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Good work mate.
 
All this this billionaire and that billionaire are keen and the club will end up been bought by some fella who owns plaster boards.
 
wigwams said:
The Athletic articles are usually the journos indulging themselves with a bit of fact thrown in. Remember when it took about 8 of them to do an explosive piece on us in the summer which turned out to be nothing of the sort?
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The one which was so back and forth across the timeline where they hadnt really done any editing? Got dizzy reading that.
 
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