Jack Bryan is a football writer and life long Derby County supporter.
Bin Zayed International, Erik Alonso and now Chris Kirchner. It feels like groundhog day, doesn’t it? Yet another attempt to buy Derby County has failed after reported issues transferring funds. Only this time, the situation feels desperate.
It was first reported by Ed Dawes on BBC Radio Derby last Wednesday, that “The deal [for Kirchner to by Derby] will most likely collapse today.” It may have taken five days, but that has of course now happened, proving those who were sceptical of the 34 year old right.
On Thursday, administrators Quantuma gave Kirchner another deadline, he had until 5pm on Friday to complete the deal, and also announced that they were now engaging with other interested parties ‘as a contingency measure.’ This was missed, as has been the case with previous deadlines, the difference this time is that it wasn’t extended. And tonight, as I write this, Kirchner pulled the plug.
Alarm bells had been ringing for at least a few days prior to Wednesday’s reports. Kirchner said in a tweet posted late on the 16th May that he would ‘be the next owner of Derby County Football Club’ after contracts were exchanged between him and the administrators, and that he’d ‘begin funding the club next week’. Despite this, deadlines to complete the deal of the 31st of May and then the 1st of June were then missed, prompting Derby’s former prospective owner to tweet at three minutes past midnight (UK time) on the 2nd of June: “Nothing to be alarmed about.
The end of May was chosen because of scheduling for EFL (released in a few weeks) and everyone collectively didn’t think about the three combined bank holidays this week. Working through it and believe we have it resolved. Enjoy your weekend of celebrations.” From then on, in stark contrast to how Kirchner had previously been operating, radio silence. Well, apart from telling the BBC’s Sports editor Dan Roan, “It’ll all come out soon.” When asked about how the deal was progressing last Wednesday after taking part in the Pro-Am tournament ahead of the controversial LIV Golf series, and mention on Twitter of how good Rafa Nadal is on clay, a few days earlier.
The bottom line is that Chris Kirchner is now out of the race to buy Derby. Having lost the trust of fans over the past few days, and not looked good after the interaction, or lack of, with Dan Roan, that may well be a good thing. Not to mention the reports from The Athletic’s Elias Burke on Friday that ‘Slync.io, the company for which Derby County’s prospective new owner Chris Kirchner is chief executive, is more than two weeks behind on payments to at least several of its employees’. As I said in a previous blog post, you never know what an owner is going to be like. Kirchner had said some good things, and no one knows who, if anyone will buy the club, and how they would run it, but I’m not feeling disappointed tonight.
Mike Ashley is interested, as reportedly is former chairman Andy Appleby and Ed Dawes has reported tonight that as he understands ‘there are six to eight bidders who are happy to put forward bids for the football club,’ so there is still hope. My main worry is time, with the 2022-23 League One fixtures set to be released a week on Thursday, and the season kicking off on Saturday 30th July. These concerns seem to be shared by the EFL, who released a statement on Sunday afternoon that ‘it is changing the terms of the suspended Notice of Withdrawal issued when the Club entered into administration in September 2021,’ with the league ‘increasingly concerned that the ongoing delays in the sale process now present a real risk to the integrity of next season’s competition.’ This suggests that the EFL are obviously now pushing for a deal to be struck, which we need to happen quickly, from a footballing perspective to prevent more players and coaches departing, and more importantly to prevent other staff from losing their jobs.
Here our reaction to Chris Kirchner dropping out of the race to purchase Derby County with our latest podcast (recorded just after the news broke!)