Blackpool: Owen Oyston offers Valeri Belokon his shares for £5m
- Published
Blackpool finished 12th in League One last season
Blackpool owner Owen Oyston has offered to sell his controlling shares in the League One club to former director Valeri Belokon for £5m.
In an open letter to Belokon, Oyston gave him the choice to offset the £5m against debt owed to the Latvian businessman by the Oyston family - believed to be £25m., external
The Oyston family have already been ordered to buy out the shares in the club owned by VB Football Assets, the Latvian's company, for £31.27m in November 2017.
A statement on the club website, external said Belokon, who bought a 20% stake in Blackpool in 2006, was engaged in negotiations with Oyston.
Belokon resigned as a director of the Tangerines in August 2017.
In the letter, Oyston said his offer was a "final opportunity" for Belokon to show his "regard and affection" for the club.
His offer is conditional to Belokon funding the club and making "sufficient investment" to secure Blackpool's future.
However, Belokon is disqualified from club ownership after being given a 20-year jail term in Kyrgyzstan in May 2017, external for "money laundering, tax evasion and dishonesty" and subsequently failed the English Football League's Owners' and Directors' Test in September 2017.
Despite this, Belokon said in April he was working with the EFL to reverse the decision to disqualify him because it ignored "basic principles of natural justice".
Meanwhile, the club said they had "tried hard" to keep Gary Bowyer, who left the post of manager on Monday after just one game of the 2018-19 campaign, at Bloomfield Road.
Bowyer, 47, led the Seasiders to promotion from League Two in 2016-17 and achieved a 12th-placed finish on their return to the third tier last season.