Keith Wyness explains chances of Neil Lal agreeing Leicester City takeover: ‘Two things here…’
Leicester City’s King Power ownership will not be able to sell the club to proposed buyer Neil Lal in the coming months.
That is according to former Everton chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who does not believe that the Indian-Scottish businessman is well-placed to be able to generate the necessary funds.
The Foxes are currently up for sale after their relegation into League One, with owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha holding out for the full £222million of the club and its portfolio.
Wyness believes that the valuation is far too high for the League One club, and outlined that even an asking price of £150m would be on the steep side.
Lal is reportedly putting together an Indian-based consortium in order to fund a takeover of the club, but Wyness does not believe that he will be a genuinely viable option.
Russell Martin’s side began their quest for promotion back to the Championship with a 1-1 draw away at Notts County last week, but things are far from certain behind the scenes.
Neil Lal not capable of Leicester takeover
Everton’s former chief Wyness – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – believes that Lal won’t be able to generate the necessary wealth to buy Leicester and then fund their rise back up the leagues.
The former boardroom man is sceptical about the group that Lal is putting together, and made it clear that he has seen it all before when it comes to proposed takeovers of clubs.
Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Wyness explained why he believes that Lal effectively has “zero chance” of getting a deal done.
“I think there's two things here. I think the valuation is based on the property values, because they've obviously got the stadium that's in good shape and the training ground is a lovely piece of work as well,” he said.
“So a lot of it is based on that, but £220m for a club in League One is incredibly high. So it'll be based and stripped back right to property valuations completely. To me, even £150m seems a high valuation.
“Obviously, you can imagine the presentation saying how only recently they'd won the Premier League and what great potential there was, but actually, let's face it, in League One it's a whole different situation, and they've got to get out of that league, which is not easy.
“I don't see that valuation being anywhere near what's going to happen. In terms of syndicates being formed, if I had a penny for every time I've heard that around football clubs I'd be very wealthy.
“I'd like to see who's going to be in that syndicate because unless it's one of the very wealthy Indian families, he has zero chance.”
Lazio submit offer for Leicester starlet
Football Insider revealed earlier this week that Lazio have submitted an offer to sign Leicester starlet Lorenz Hutchinson before the end of the summer window.
The Foxes have already lost a top young talent in Jeremy Monga, and they are now fighting to keep both Hutchinson and Louis Page.
The East Midlands outfit rate Hutchinson very highly, and he has already represented England at U18 level.
Leicester’s response to the bid from Lazio remains unclear at this stage, but they have already been keen to cash in on some of their brightest talents so far this summer.