The owners of Sheffield United have reportedly accepted a £115million bid from American businessman Henry Mauriss to purchase the Championship club.
Mauriss is again dipping his toes into football having previously attempted to buy Newcastle Unied for £350m back in 2020. The Blades are currently owned by Abdullah Bin Mosaad Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a Saudi prince who purchased a 50 per cent share of the club in 2013. He won a long and unsavoury legal battle with previous co-owner Kevin McCabe to take full control of the club in 2019.
If the deal were to go through it would represent a tidy profit for United's current owner as he was ordered to pay McCabe just £5m when he gained sole ownership two-and-a-half years ago. But where do United's owners sit in terms of the rich list for the 24 clubs in the Championship this season?
Perhaps surprisingly it is Barnsley who have the owners with deepest pockets. The most recent figures show that the South Yorkshire club's owners, the Chien Lee consortium, have funds estimated at £7billion. Barnsley are on the cusp of relegation into League One having reached the play-offs last season. The club is part of a unique stable of teams spanning Europe, with French side Nancy and FC Thun of Switzerland sister clubs.
City Football Group and Red Bull have similar multi-club arrangements although Barnsley's model is based on buying players cheap, giving them vital experience and then selling them at a healthy profit. This extends to their approach to appointing left-field managers with both Gerhard Struber and Valerien Ismael being poached after doing excellent jobs. Both departures earned Barnsley in the region of £4million combined in compensation.
Also high on the list are Fulham and Bournemouth, the former of whom have already sealed promotion to the Premier League whilst the latter look odds-on in joining them in the top flight next season.
Shahid Khan, owner of Fulham, has an estimated wealth of £5.8billion whilst Maxim Denim, owner of Bournemouth, is valued at approximately £900m. At the other end of the scale Luton Town are fan-owned which makes their march to the play-offs even more extraordinary.
The Hatters are right in the play-off mix and have built a promotion push that belies their modest budget. Only once in their history have they spent a transfer fee of more than £1million. If they were to be promoted, Luton would have to undertake significant work on their Kenilworth Road stadium. The ground not only has a small capacity of 10,356 but would need all manner of upgrades to be considered ready for the Premier League, including new floodlights.
Estimated wealth of Championship owners
Barnsley £7bn
Birmingham £420m
Blackburn £1.56bn
Blackpool unknown
Bournemouth £900m
Bristol City £1.87bn
Cardiff £1.25bn
Coventry £2.3bn
Derby £550m (previous owner Mel Morris, club now in administration)
Fulham £5.8bn
Huddersfield £370m
Hull £73m
Luton Town Fan-owned
Middlesbrough £270m
Millwall £136m
Nottingham Forest £505m
Peterborough unknown
Preston £1bn
QPR £580m * Part-owner Lakshmi Mittal worth estimated £14bn.
Reading £1bn
Sheff Utd £198m
Stoke £6.9bn
Swansea £220m
West Brom £2bn
