Former Derby County player and coach Eric Steele appeared on the latest edition of the BBC’s Sportscene Podcast to discuss all of the latest Derby County news and he spent some time talking about Sheikh Khaled bin Saquer Zayed Al Nehayan’s impending Rams takeover during the show.
This comes after it’s been reported that this takeover is finally set to reach completion this week after it initially received the EFL’s approval back in November and the club claimed that the deal was expected to be finalised before Christmas, which ultimately didn’t happen.
During this podcast, Steele spent some time speculating about the motivation behind Sheikh Khaled’s takeover bid, with the pundit sharing that he would like to ask the prospective Derby owner why he wants to buy the club.
On that topic, Steele shared that he believes Sheikh Khaled’s motivation to do this deal stems from a desire to emulate what his cousin, Sheikh Mansour, achieved at Manchester City following his 2008 takeover of that club, saying:
“I think they’ve all looked in the Middle East and gone, ‘Look what Sheikh Mansour did in 2008, look where they are now from where they were in 2008’ – that is a phenomenal success story, but boy, there’s a lot of money exchanged hands in order to get that.”
Do you think the takeover will be completed this week?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Steele said about the motivation behind this Derby takeover…
Perhaps it wouldn’t be a massive surprise if Sheikh Khaled is inspired by his cousin, given how Man City have risen up the ladder and gone on to achieve plenty of success, including four Premier League titles since he completed his takeover of the club.
If the would-be Rams owner is confident that he is capable of helping Derby County to grow in a similar way, then that would surely be an exciting prospect for fans of the East Midlands club.
Whether or not Sheikh Khaled can actually achieve similar growth with Derby as Sheikh Mansour achieved with Man City remains to be seen, however, and at the moment, perhaps Rams fans shouldn’t look too far beyond the deal actually getting over the line this week, given that they failed to meet their estimated date of completion in December.