Fearn looking for fans to join Sheffield Wednesday takeover
0 Comments | Yorkshire Post (Leeds, England), August 27, 2010
Fearn, who sold his stake for just one pound in May, is a lifelong Owls supporter whose company now sponsors the South Stand at Hillsborough.
During his four-year involvement with East Stirlingshire, the club’s town centre ground, Firs Park, was sold to a housing developer for A[pounds sterling]1.5m.
The club is now ground sharing with neighbours Stenhousemuir.
Confirming his interest in the Owls last night, Fearn, 35, admitted that he was playing the role of ‘magnet’ for funds rather than being a primary investor.
He has linked up with Sheffield accountant John Roddison and veteran publicist Eric Hall in a bid to raise awareness of the plan and will operate under the banner ‘Wednesday Forward’.
Fearn says he has held talks with Owls chief executive Nick Parker and members of the club’s board and claims the club’s biggest creditors, the Co-Operative Bank, are willing to write of a chunk of the club’s A[pounds sterling]25m debt if his bid is successful.
The Owls, meanwhile, refused to comment.
Fearn is the latest in a string of prospective investors to show interest in the Owls, who are currently fighting a winding up petition served by HM Revenue and Customs for unpaid tax.
Chicago-based Club 9 Sports also mounted a high-profile bid to gain control of the League One club this year but failed to deliver proof of funding.
“We are confident that we can get A[pounds sterling]5m now and then raise another A[pounds sterling]5m,” Fearn said last night. “We have been talking to lots of excellent businessmen from Sheffield who are Wednesdayites as well as a number of investors from Europe and Asia.
“These are only ‘intentions’ at this stage, nothing is 100 per cent,” he stressed. “But we are looking to table something in the next three or four weeks which can take the club forward.”
As a teenager, Fearn was a youth team player at Sheffield United but failed to make the grade. He now plays for a pub team in his native Wickersley in Rotherham.
Eight years ago, he set up Life Skills Solutions, the Rotherham-based training business which now sponsors the Hillsborough South Stand. In 2009, the company was ranked 13th in the Sunday Times list of top 100 companies to work for. Life Skills now plan to open their eighth training centre at Hillsborough next year.
Fearn says anyone who is interested in joining the takeover bid needs to provide a minimum outlay of A[pounds sterling]100,000. He has already approached supporters group Wednesdayite and a newly formed supporters organisation, Wednesday Till I Die, and has offered seats on the board to both if his takeover bid is accepted.
John Gath, chairman of Wednesdayite, said: “We are always willing to talk to anyone with a credible plan to put forward a especially one that involves the fans.”
On the field, striker Marcus Tudgay remains the subject of mounting transfer speculation a fuelled by the attendance of Blackpool manager Ian Holloway at Tuesday night’s Carling Cup tie at Scunthorpe United.
Tudgay was the subject of a failed A[pounds sterling]300,000 bid from the Premier League newboys at the start of the season and, with just five days to go before the close of the transfer window, an improved offer may be in the pipeline.
Owls manager Alan Irvine, however, has praised Tudgay for ignoring the transfer speculation a unlike some players including Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano and Stoke City’s Asmir Begovic who pulled out of midweek games this week amid talk of imminent moves.
“Everyone is assuming that Ian Holloway was there watching Marcus a and that’s probably a reasonable assumption to make,” said Irvine
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