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It’s been a couple of weeks now since Ellis Short agreed a deal for Stewart Donald and his consortium to takeover at Sunderland AFC, but the club have been on hold since then as they wait for the EFL to give their approval to the prospective new owners.
Thankfully that process is almost over now, with the consortium hopeful that the takeover will be given EFL approval this week.
With more information set to emerge on Tuesday, the club may finally be in new hands by the end of the week and Donald can start work on preparing for life in League One.
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The first thing on Donald’s to-do list will be appointing a new manager - with Chris Wilder still the clear favourite - to replace Chris Coleman who was fired by Ellis Short shortly before the takeover was agreed due to a clause in his contract that would have seen Coleman earn an extra £1.3m should the new owners want to remove him.
The club also need to resolve the future of a number of key youngsters, with the likes of George Honeyman, Joel Asoro, Josh Maja and Lyndon Gooch all in the last year of their contracts. A squad overhaul needs to happen due to relegation, a large number of players being out of contract or leaving the club on loan and high earners needing to be moved on.
So as pre-season is only six weeks away - which will also require pre-season friendlies being arranged - the takeover being completed this week will be a much needed boost.
Donald has expressed on numerous occasions over the last few weeks on his Twitter page that he’s raring to go and is just waiting to be given the green light, and with the takeover about to reach its conclusion it’ll be interesting to see how things kick on from here - particularly tomorrow, when Donald and his team are expecting that they’ll hear some positive news from the EFL regarding their due diligence.