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Stewart Donald was once again a guest on the Roker Rapport podcast - full details of how to listen can be found below - and during the show he discussed the potential of investment being brought into the club in the near future.
There had been talk of Mark Campbell taking over the club but Donald maintains that all the paper talk surrounding the future of the club had been wide of the mark and no-one had got close to a deal.
However the Sunderland owners says they do now have a preferred partner who is close to coming in and completing a ‘hugely exciting’ deal that would see the club being able to kick on and reach the next level:
There’s been lots of paper talk about different people, all of the paper talk so far has been wildly out. There have been people interested but we have not been close.
We are close. This is really simple and it is one of the biggest tests of Charlie and my ownership of the club, is the deal that we do.
I think a lot of people will look at that and it will tell them whether or not, lots of what we said is actually true.
Are we actually here to be Rodney and Del Boy and make a quick buck? Are we actually going try and be to be here and be here for a long time?
Have we done a deal for us or have we done a deal for the football club?
We have had a massively wide spectrum of people interested in the club and if you cut away all the chancers - and people like me I suppose!
When you cut that away, get down to it and actually analyse it, there have been some very, very decent people who I think, potentially, can do a good job for this football club and I think we are very, very close.
We’ve got a preferred partner, someone that we think can really do what we have talked about doing and come with us to take the club to the next level.
I hope that we can get that deal over the line because I think it’s a hugely exciting deal for all the right reasons.
For taking the football club on, as we have said we wanted to and in the way that we want to.
We don’t want people who talk a good game, say they have got money and then don’t back it up or people who have money but don’t know how to spend it.
We want it structured, sustainable, long term and the people we are talking to are talking long, long term investment, long term plan, not built on sand and I’m hopeful that as much as anything now that we have got to persuade them to come with us on this journey.
Where we are is absolutely fine, to keep competing as we are and be financially safe but I think we have now attracted people who can do what we’ve said.
I am hopeful that we can get something over the line relatively quickly.
You can listen to the podcast with Stewart Donald for free via iTunes, Acast, Spotify or subscribe to YouTube HERE. Alternatively, click play on the video below. Enjoy!