Derby County centre-back Curtis Davies appeared on the latest edition of The Official EFL Podcast and spent some time talking about the Sunderland takeover bid that is led by Juan Sartori – who is already a minority shareholder in the North East club – and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, the son of ex-Marseille owner Robert Louis-Dreyfus.
22-year-old Louis-Dreyfus, who has got a trust fund worth £2bn which is held by his mother Margarita according to ChronicleLive, was allegedly contacted about purchasing a majority stake in Sunderland six months ago, and last week, the news broke that he has agreed on a takeover deal with current Black Cats owner Stewart Donald, who claimed he was ‘desperately trying’ to sell the club back in the summer.
With this Sunderland takeover said to be ‘in its advanced stages’, Davies aired his opinion on the deal during this recent edition of The Official EFL Podcast, and the 35-year-old shared some uncertainty over how much of an impact the prospective new Sunderland owner can have on the club’s success via transfer market spending due to League One’s salary cap.
Davies said: “I think the thing that will be difficult for Sunderland is the fact that there’s a wage cap, if I’m being totally honest, because for whatever money this new owner can bring into the football club, because there’s a wage cap in League One, he’s not going to be able to get the better, better players to be able to step over the other teams and make themselves almost guaranteed to go up.
“Because Sunderland get 40,000 fans for home games, they obviously have the backing and the money to get these players in and support these players – but even if this owner comes in, because of the wage cap, they won’t be able to maybe pay over the odds to nick players from the Championship, things like that; I don’t think they’ll be able to do that anymore.
“So, that’s going to be interesting moving forward because like I say [if] this person comes in with money [and] they can’t spend it, what good is it? That’s my opinion of it.”
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TIF Thoughts on what Davies had to say about the Sunderland takeover…
When the wage cap was introduced to League One in the summer, Sunderland’s wage bill was already above the £2.5m threshold and they were granted a grace period to cut their wage bill down.
With that in mind, perhaps Davies made a good point by saying that the prospective new Black Cats owner’s hands may be tied to an extent with regard to how much he and his funds can help the club to move up the English football ladder and perhaps this takeover doesn’t necessarily guarantee the club immediate success.