Derby County's Near Takeover: An Hour Away from Change
Derby County were an hour away from changing hands. Instead, the club’s owner doubled down on a promotion gamble that is very much his own.
A sale that vanished in an hour
Stephen Pearce, Derby’s chief executive, has revealed just how close the Rams came to a new era under Saudi Arabia government official Turki Al‑Sheikh this summer – and how abruptly it all disappeared.
A deal had been agreed. The Independent Football Regulator had signed it off. So had the EFL. Lawyers were moving towards completion.
Then Al‑Sheikh walked away.
Pearce told BBC Radio Derby that the collapse, arriving “effectively, an hour before we thought it was going to complete”, left the club stunned.
“The wind was taken out of our sails, totally,” he said. The weeks of regulatory checks had already placed Derby in what he called a “holding pattern” for a large chunk of the transfer window. Targets waited. Plans paused. The club hovered.
And then, with the finish line in sight, the takeover simply died.
Clowes spends like a seller who never expects a refund
This is where the story bends away from the usual script.
Most owners, knowing a sale is imminent, slam the brakes on spending. Not David Clowes.
The Derbyshire property developer, a lifelong supporter who dragged the club out of administration in 2022, kept signing off cheques while fully expecting never to see the money again.
During the takeover process, Clowes approved:
- £6m to bring Bobby Clark in permanently from RB Salzburg
- A loan-to-buy deal for Sam Szmodics from Ipswich at £2.7m
- Around £600,000 to land Alex Mowatt from West Bromwich Albion
All of it bankrolled while he believed the club was about to be sold.
“This is why he’s such an incredible owner,” Pearce said. Clowes knew that if the deal went through, that transfer spend was gone to him forever. He spent it anyway.
He could have told Pearce and head coach John Eustace on 1 July: no more. Wait it out. Let the new money handle it. He didn’t. He kept backing the squad.
“And he didn’t. He backed it regardless and that’s why we’re in such a strong position,” Pearce said.
From open shop window to closed market
Clowes had never hidden his desire to bring in fresh investment to fuel a Premier League push. The agreement with Al‑Sheikh – a powerful figure in Saudi government circles and a major player in boxing – looked like exactly that: heavyweight backing for a club that had just missed the play-offs.
When the deal fell apart, Clowes didn’t put Derby back in the shop window. He shut it.
Derby County came off the market. The focus turned inward: strengthen what he already owned, build on what had quietly been assembled under his watch.
The most striking move after the collapse was the £4m outlay on David Ozoh from Crystal Palace, the biggest single fee of the window. Around that, Derby added a cluster of free transfers and loans, including a deadline-day reunion with Eiran Cashin.
This was not the behaviour of an owner retreating after a failed sale. It was the behaviour of a man deciding, once again, that if Derby are going up, he wants to be the one paying for the climb.
Promotion target unchanged
So has the disrupted summer knocked Derby off course? Pearce’s answer is blunt.
“Not in the slightest, otherwise we wouldn’t have spent all the money we’ve spent,” he said.
The club finished just outside the play-off places last season. The expectation, internally at least, is clear: progression, not consolidation.
“We want to push on. We want progression this season,” Pearce insisted.
An hour. That was all that separated Derby from a very different future under Turki Al‑Sheikh.
Instead, the club moves into this campaign still owned – and heavily funded – by the man who saved it from administration, a supporter writing eight-figure cheques in the hope that one of English football’s great old names can find its way back to the Premier League on his watch.
If Derby do make it, the story of the hour that changed everything will be told again and again.
