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Artist News
One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson’s “gutted” after football team takeover deal falls through
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 21 July 2014
One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson has said he’s “gutted” after his takeover of Doncaster Rovers Football Club was blocked by the Football League last week. The news came after a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to pay for the running of the club failed to achieve its target.
As previously reported, Tomlinson and business partner John Ryan, the club’s former chairman, agreed to buy the football business from current owners Terry Bramall, Dick Watson and David Blunt. The pair then launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £2 million to cover running costs, setting up The Tomlinson Ryan Trust to manage the money and putting in £500,000 themselves to get things started.
But four weeks later, when the crowdfunding campaign came to an end, they had only managed to raise an extra £257,796 on top of their original investment (so £757,796 in total) putting them at just 38% of their target. And as these things go, if you don’t reach your target, you don’t get anything at all. Possibly they overestimated how enthusiastic One Direction fans would be about the rewards on offer.
Without the money in place, it seems, the Football League authorities do not see the two men as being fit to run the club, which has upset both of them greatly.
Tomlinson aired his disappointment on Twitter, writing: “I’m absolutely gutted the Doncaster Rovers deal is not going ahead. I am desperate for the club to be given the recognition it deserves. I was explicitly told that the deal to buy the club was not dependent on the money raised by crowdfunding. Unfortunately I was misled”.
He added: “My passion for Doncaster Rovers remains as strong as ever, and I hope that I can still be involved with the club moving forward! And to all the Doncaster Rovers fans, I will do all in my power to help the club succeed. I really do love the club! For the record, I insisted contractually I would never earn a penny from DRFC. I simply wanted to help club and community. Still hoping I can”.
John Ryan, meanwhile, spoke to BBC Radio Sheffield, and was considerably more angry about it. He said: “The situation is that the crowdfunder didn’t succeed and we are very sorry about that, but the real problem is with the Football League. They have made it so difficult now that unless you have a bag full of cash you are going to get turned down”.
Though the footballing organisation itself released a statement last week saying that the business plan presented to support the takeover had not been satisfactory. It wrote: “In any club takeover it is a requirement for the prospective purchaser to provide a business plan and to demonstrate that the funding is in place to deliver on that plan. In this case, this fundamental requirement has not yet been met. We are in close contact with the club and will continue our dialogue”.
But that dialogue will not include Tomlinson and Ryan, seemingly. Certainly not Ryan anyway, who continued in his BBC interview by saying: “As far as I am concerned this is a dark day for football. Louis and I were just looking to do the right thing but this is the end of my involvement in football now. It has been a long love affair between myself and Doncaster Rovers but it has hit the buffers today. The way I feel right now I doubt I will ever go to another football match in my life”.
The Doncaster Rovers crowdfunding campaign was one of the topics discussed during the live recording of the CMU Podcast in June, so at least someone got something out of it. Join us again at The Roundhouse in London on 29 Jul to see what we jinx next.
