The German Consortium: Roker Park legend admits he was part of failed Sunderland takeover bid

Sunderland legend Gordon Armstrong joined the Roker Rapport Podcast this week, and spoke candidly about his past involvements with groups who were looking to buy the club from Ellis Short.

Armstrong - who made 416 appearances for the Lads over eleven years - is now a football agent and represents a large number of players currently operating within the professional game.

He also has a role on the committee of the ‘Red and White Army’ supporter’s group and still attends games to this day as a fan. Furthermore, due to his standing in the game both as a businessman and as a former player, he has been contacted on a variety of occasions to get involved in talks regarding potential takeovers of the football club.

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During the Podcast recording one of the Roker Rapport listeners submitted a question asking Gordon if he was involved with any of the consortiums looking to buy the club, to which he responded:

No, that’s not true, no. I have been involved with one or two of the consortiums (in the past) that has been involved in trying to buy it, it’s never came off.

I think there is somebody locally trying to buy the club right now, so we’ll see what happens, see how it moves forward.

That’s the big thing that does need to change is the owner of the football club - probably for his own good as well as much as the football club’s, for everybody’s sanity I think it does need to change and hopefully that happens.

But yeah, I’ve been involved before, i.e. with the German consortium and other bits and bobs.

When prompted for further details on that particular deal, Gordon added:

They had a meeting with Mr Short and they couldn’t find an agreement, basically, so that’s where that ended up.

There’s been loads of others I guess that have looked at it - there was another group that I was dealing with, they were very interested at one stage, but when we were in the Premier League and they dropped out - an American group.

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There is very little known about the consortium in question, though in an interview back in February with Roker Report, BBC Newcastle’s Nick Barnes hinted that he wouldn’t rule out that the Germans could come back in for the club now once our relegation to League One has been officially confirmed.

Journalist Alan Nixon had suggested during the course of the talks that funding was a sticking point between Short and the party discussing a takeover. Ultimately the American financier issued a statement saying the bid was not in the ‘best interests’ of Sunderland AFC and it has been suggested he was unconvinced by the German consortium’s plans for the club.

The full Podcast with Gordon Armstrong, which is available for free on iTunes, Acast and Youtube, can be found here.