The deal to protracted deal to purchase Derby County by the Bin Zayed Group (BZG) has fallen through after the exclusivity agreement deadline passed. It was reported two weeks ago by The Athletic that Derby were in “advanced talks” with Erik Alonso. A quick search on Erik Alonso shows that he’s a 29 year old Spaniard, with a boxing background who was recently involved with Sheffield Wednesday.
Other than that who is he? “He’s a Spanish agent and businessman,” says Dom Howson, the Sheffield Wednesday writer at Yorkshire Live. “He has a background of working in sport, mainly boxing and he’s also helped some big clubs in Europe, Inter Milan and Marseille come to mind and he’s also a well-connected agent.”
About a year ago Alonso became interested in a football club in England. He got involved with Dejphon Chansiri, the chairman of Sheffield Wednesday. He was brought on as an advisor to and to be involved on the commercial aspects of the club. However, “there has been no mega deal that Wednesday have announced on the commercial side in the last year,” says Howson.
His influence seemingly started to grow at Hillsborough as he was involved in Wednesday’s search for a new manager to take over from Tony Pulis. “Around Christmas time, Wednesday was looking for a new manager to replace Tony Pulis, he was putting forward names and was involved in the managerial process. He pushed quite strong for Paul Cook to replace Pulis,” says Howson. “But he had a difference of opinion with, Amadeu Paixao, the right-hand man to Chansiri. Both Alonso and Paixao were
both putting names forward for managers. Their choices were different, and this led to a power struggle.”
After the managerial debacle, Alonso was very active on social media. “He was telling fans that he was the main man at Wednesday, from transfers to the commercial side,” says Howson. “It became apparent to the club that he was not only engaging with fans but also telling agents and recruitment staff at other clubs…that if they wanted to get a deal done at Sheffield Wednesday, they would need to go through him.”
Around the turn of the year Alonso also made a bid for The Owls, which according to reports was between £25 and £30 million. “It was a serious bid. It was tabled around the time that he was still an advisor,” says Howson. “It was a sort of offer that wouldn’t have really scratched the surface anyway as it was way below Chansiri’s valuation. Wednesday were similar to Derby in that they sold the stadium and that was £60 million. Chansiri was not looking to sell anyway.”
While the bid was on going, there were no public remarks or grand statements for the future of the club. However he was active on social media. “He was on a charm offensive with fans and messaged him privately and he was responding,” says Howson. “He told the fans they were the biggest asset of this football club. He was trying to build a relationship with the fans at Wednesday. He did no interviews at all.”
This increase in influence and the difference of opinion between Alonso and Chansiri ultimately led to the Spaniard’s departure. “Alonso released a statement towards the end of January,” said Howson. “It was very vague and there were not specifics as to what happened. This statement was released the same night that Wednesday denied that they were after Paul Cook to become manager. A couple days later Chansiri gave his account as to why he left, effectively accusing Alonso of creating a lot of trouble at the club.”
These statements thus marked the end of his tenure at Wednesday. Making a strange footnote in the Chansiri reign at Sheffield Wednesday. “If his remit was to get commercial sponsors then there is no evidence that he’s added value in that department,” says Howson. “Same with the player recruitment and managerial process. He was a guy who was trying to establish himself as club and it just didn’t happen.”
Since his departure he was not in the news very much until his name surfaced last week as being in “advanced talks” about purchasing Derby County. According to The Athletic, he has funds in place for an immediate takeover and investment in the club with no debt or borrowing involved in the deal. So how wealthy is he? Is he independently wealthy or does he have a consortium backing him? “I don’t know how wealthy he is,” says Howson. “I would be surprised if it is his own funds. I would think the Indonesian backers would be involved.”
If the deal did to go through, would he be a good owner for The Rams? “I think he’s someone who has good intentions and he’s clearly looking at Championship clubs and the opportunities there to take a club to Premier League,” says Howson. “That’s an attractive proposition and that would be great on his CV. I think he’s someone who likes projects. It’s hard to say if he’d be a good owner because he doesn’t have any experience of owning a football club himself and we don’t know if it will be him or if he is just fronting a deal. It’s a very difficult question to answer.”
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