Ollie Westbury gives the latest on Shrewsbury Town's takeover

Shropshire Star

Ollie Westbury sat down with Jonny Drury on this week's episode of the Shrews Views podcast. Salop fans are eagerly awaiting updates regarding the club's takeover - after they entered into a period of exclusivity with a prospective buyer. Jonny and Ollie discuss the current situation and the current state of play.

Transcript

00:00I don't think the club were expecting it to happen by a time period. Everybody at Shrewsbury

00:09wants this done. They want it done. It's my understanding that they want it done.

00:15With a matter of urgency, everybody wants it. But it's kind of a process that you have to go

00:21through. I've seen some of the questions that have come in online and spent some time thinking

00:26about them. I was just looking at some stuff this morning about some other potential takeovers. I

00:33looked at clubs that have gone into periods of exclusivity. One of those was Sunderland

00:38went into exclusivity in July 2020. Their takeover then wasn't officially approved by

00:47the AFL until the February after. Obviously, Johnny, you cover West Brom. That was a similar

00:54situation. There were rumblings of a takeover in the summer. That was eventually completed

01:00again with the February timeline. Another one that I found online of an example, and I know

01:05that this is a complicated case because it's Southend. Obviously, there was all manner of

01:10kind of troubles, but they agreed a deal with someone to buy the club in October.

01:16That wasn't signed, sealed and delivered until the following summer. I think what I'm getting

01:21at by this is it's not a linear process. It's not a case of we need to get this takeover completed

01:27so that we can provide a war chest in January. That is just not how it works. Despite how much

01:33both parties might want to get it done, it's like a house sale to within a certain degree.

01:39It doesn't matter how you might want to buy your house and get moved into it and have it completed

01:43before Christmas. There are so many complicated things that have to go into it in order for that

01:48to happen. You can't always be able to provide that kind of clear and concise kind of message

01:58of it will be done at this time. Liam Dooley said himself in a recent Supporters Parliament

02:03meeting that it's unlikely to be completed by the end of January. From my understanding,

02:09that's the situation as I get it.

02:14Yeah, they do take time. Like you said there, I'll cover the West Brom one.

02:18And that was a case, you know, a different situation again, but a case of, you know,

02:22you want updates, you want timelines, but because of the sort of delicate nature of the business

02:28behind these takeovers, information coming out is kind of very scarce and it doesn't come out.

02:34Like you say, you know, a lot of these deals are covered by non-disclosure agreements and there

02:39are things that are kept very, very tightly under wraps. But like Ollie said, there is a massive

02:43urgency with insurers to get this completed as soon as possible. Another question you had, Ollie,

02:47was kind of around Gareth Ainsworth and his link to kind of the takeover and whether he took the

02:52job on the pretense that funds would be available in January. But that's definitely not the case,

02:58which is my understanding of it. Yeah, that's not the case. I think Gareth Ainsworth has come

03:02into this job with his eyes wide open. He understood what it was when he came into it.

03:09And yeah, the fact that I don't think he ever said that there was going to be wholesale changes

03:17in January at any stage really. Kind of what he said was the business in January was dependent

03:22on how the players played in November and December, which at the start of his tenure

03:26was obviously really good against Blues. And then it kind of went backwards from that perspective.

03:33But yeah, I gather that if the takeover wasn't set to be completed, that Gareth Ainsworth was

03:41completely abreast of what was going on at the football club and the prospects of business in

03:46January, and that hasn't changed. So yeah, Gareth Ainsworth knows where Shrewsbury's sitting in the

03:51food chain. He says it quite regularly. He doesn't seem downbeat by that, by the way. It's not like

03:57he's complaining about the funds that Shrewsbury have got available. He seems to have a complete

04:01understanding of what they have to work with. But yeah, so the Gareth thing about what convinced

04:08him to come to Shrewsbury if they can't sign any players, I don't think that's strictly correct.

04:13I think obviously he will, I would have expected, be open to conversations that happen and he will

04:21probably be privy to more information than we are in terms of how exciting the future are,

04:27because he has referenced that on several occasions. But obviously it's an ongoing process

04:32and the club needs to follow it straight through.

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