Everyone loves the Premiership. England’s top league has the wow factor – big names, bigger games, a hectic tempo and passionate fans. Our league is loved all over the world and envied from afar. With foreign investors dying to get a piece of the Premiership pie, it is only a matter of time before every club is owned by Arabs or Sheikhs. A whole host of big clubs are reliant on foreign benefactors: Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and errr, now Notts County. Believe it or not, the League Two Magpies, the world’s oldest club, are next in line for a big money takeover.
Cash-strapped and pretty clueless, having finished in the bottom half of League Two for five consecutive seasons, Notts County don’t seem to be the most logical choice for foreign investment. However, Middle Eastern consortium Munto Finance Ltd are poised to pour millions of pounds into a club that hasn’t experienced top flight football since 1992. It seems an incredibly strange choice at face value, with much larger clubs currently in desperate need of investment.
Strange perhaps, but Munto Finance are headed by Nottingham-born Peter Trembling, a man who has experience of English league football having been commercial director at Everton. This will go some way towards reassuring apprehensive Magpies fans that their club isn’t about to be taken over by a random assortment of cut-throat Sultans and Sheikhs with no appreciation of the club’s historic past.
Clearly there is some sort of labour of love behind Trembling’s choice of team, and County fans will hope that he takes it upon himself to restore the once great club to its former glory. The Meadow Lane club may not quite be a ‘sleeping giant’, but they’ve certainly been snoozing for a long time and have the infrastructure to climb the football league quickly ala Hull, Wigan and Peterborough.
“One man whose excitement will be tainted with nervousness is manager Ian McParland”
One man whose excitement will be tainted with nervousness is manager Ian McParland. After two fairly dismal seasons at the helm (although it must be said under great financial constraints), the former Forest caretaker manager will be desperately hoping that Munto Finance aren’t planning a complete overhaul of the club, as his job will probably be the first to go. Foreign investment groups often have a vision for their new club and many tend to have a clear idea of which man they want in charge of the playing staff once they seize the reins of control. County fans will hope for as little disruption as possible, but McParland may suffer a few sleepless nights between now and August.
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