Steve Lansdown: Bristol City owner open to selling the club for 'right deal'
- Published
Steve Lansdown has been involved with Bristol City for over 25 years
Bristol City owner Steve Lansdown said he is open to selling the Championship club for the "right deal".
Majority shareholder Lansdown's relationship with Bristol City dates back to 1996 and he became club chairman in 2002.
The billionaire businessman said he was looking for new investors to help the club progress.
"I would [sell]. I think if it was the right deal, but I'm not [actively] looking to sell the club," he said.
He told BBC Radio Bristol: "I'm looking for people to come in and invest, but some people might want to come in and do the whole thing and then it would be another discussion.
"I'm 70 this month and the family has been involved for a long time and we can't keep doing it forever."
Lansdown - who founded a financial services company - created the Bristol Sport franchise and owns Bristol City's women's Championship football team, the Bristol Bears Premiership and Premier 15s men's and women's rugby teams, and the Bristol Flyers basketball squads.
In 2014, he oversaw a £45m redevelopment of Ashton Gate into a 27,000 seater stadium, while last summer the Robins High Performance Centre training facility opened, featuring a floodlit pitch, a further two training pitches, a gym, and medical and physio facilities.
Lansdown now lives in Guernsey and while he stepped down as chairman in 2011, his son Jon took over the role in 2019.
"I've invested a lot of money into the football club. It needs another injection, it needs some fresh blood, some fresh ideas and things to push it forward," Lansdown said.
"I'm not just going to bring any person in but we are looking and we put the information in place so people can assess what we've got, what they want and if they want to be part of what we're doing. We're looking to bring people in."
Steve Lansdown (right) says he remains ambitious to get Bristol City to the Premier League in the future
In 2008, Bristol City were one match away from the Premier League after reaching the Championship play-off final at Wembley but they were beaten by Hull City. Aside from a two-season dip into League One, the club has since then sat consistently in the second tier.
However, the Robins' highest league finish since then was eighth place in the 2018-19 season.
When manager Nigel Pearson was appointed on a three-year deal in February last year, he spoke about wanting to reach the Premier League within that time. Lansdown conceded that the team are "realistic" about that goal now, but still working towards it.
As such, they are looking for investment in the region of tens of millions.
"We're looking for serious investment if we've got aims to get into the Premier League, if we've got aims to be a top club in the country over a period of time," he continued.
"I can't tell you what the club is worth but people have got to assess that and put the money in, and to a degree share the burden.
"We have had people talking to us, we've got no offers on the table and we're not expecting any in the short term but we're talking to a number of different people on different angles."
Damaging impact of the pandemic
In December last year Bristol City reported pre-tax losses of £38.4m for the 2020-21 financial year, something that was blamed on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, playing football behind closed doors, and a drop in profits from selling players.
At the time, chief executive officer Richard Gould singled out the Lansdown family for their support.
"We've been paying out the wages, some of those quite high wages, and I'm not just talking about us I'm talking about football in general. And we're still having to do that because the contracts are still in place," Lansdown added.
"We haven't really had the income that's replenished the coffers. We went from full houses, people coming in and everything else, and people paying their season tickets which we then had to refund to no income.
"No business can afford to do that and it's only through the way we've worked it hard together and kept it going. I don't want people to be thinking it's all down to me, but I suppose it is."