Indian businessman Ahsan Ali Syed has reportedly promised Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce £100m to spend on players should his £300m offer for the club be accepted.
Syed’s representatives have opened talks with the Ewood Park club yesterday and the 36-year-old was reported to have made a promise of a huge transfer budget. “I want to give him support financially so that he can perform wonders,” Syed told the Guardian website.
A team from his Bahrain-based company Western Gulf Advisory has arrived in Lancashire on Monday with the aim of fixing a four-week negotiation period. The Indian, who lives in Bahrain, is the heir to a £5bn fortune and Syed said he wants to buy Blackburn because of his “passion” for the club and is not merely seeking to make a quick return on his investment.
“For me the investment in Blackburn is more of a passion than a way to make a quick return on the balance sheet,” he said. “I am not investing to make a return in two years and walk away. I am coming in as a fan to invest in the long term.”
Syed said that his first move on taking over would be to hand Allardyce the kind of funds that would ensure Blackburn’s place in the Premier League. “As part of our first five-year investment we will make £80m-£100m available to the manager. He has done a fantastic job for the club with constrained resources but I am sure that if he is given a free hand with the resources we can provide then Big Sam has the potential to do wonders.”
Syed faces a rival bid for Rovers from Saurin Shah, who claims he will submit an offer this week. He has yet to contact the Premier League about his takeover but said: “All my investments are out in the open but I will submit myself to whatever the Premier League requires of me,” the Guardian report added.
“The evidence of my funds is public as are my capabilities and what I can do,” Syed told The Sport Briefing.
“I’d like the fans to consider me as one of you and not to consider me as the owner. Accept me in your fan club.
“I will not let Blackburn Rovers go on a rollercoaster ride - my liquidity is solid.
“For a club, liquidity is not the oxygen, but the support and fans are the oxygen.
“I want the fans to trust in me, believe in me and do due diligence on me.
“I’ve turned around a lot of businesses. Give me a chance to turn around Blackburn Rovers.”
Blackburn, who won the Premier League in 1995, have struggled to challenge at the top of the division since the death of owner Jack Walker in 2000.
Despite the lack of silverware in recent seasons and the relatively modest size of Blackburn in comparison with some other neighbouring clubs, Syed insisted the model presents an attractive proposition.
“Blackburn fits my investment philosophy,” he added.
“I have been investing in good, but undervalued and distressed assets for 14 years now, and I have a good track record of turning around businesses.
“My team put a lot of clubs on my desk, but the only club that attracted my attention was Blackburn Rovers.
“It’s very easy to buy a high-flying club, but I’d love to buy a club like Blackburn which is stable and transform it into (a) high-level (club). That would be more challenging and interesting for me.
“Right now we have developed a 15-year strategy for Blackburn which is split into three separate five-year phases.
“In the first phase I would concentrate on enhancing the academy; getting some good players in, either this month or otherwise in January; increasing the capacity of the stadium and marketing the club in the Far East, Middle East and India.”
An increase in the capacity of 31,000-seat Ewood Park would also include other developments, according to Syed.
“Right now all of those plans are in the first stage and it would be very premature for me to speak about those plans,” he said.
“But you need to create a lot of assets, in and around Ewood Park, in order to make it self-sustainable.”
Syed said reaching the Champions League “has to be” an ambition under his tenure, and added: “Every fan dreams of championships and I am no different.”
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