Birmingham City: Others interested in club after Richardson-Lopez offer withdrawn

St Andrew's has again been operating at a reduced capacity this season because of delayed ground refurbishment

Birmingham City say "other interested parties" have made approaches for the club after Paul Richardson and Maxi Lopez withdrew their offer.

Businessman Richardson and ex-Barcelona striker Lopez began talks in July.

Richardson remains interested, but insists the deal needs readjusting.

A Blues statement said: "The club can confirm that the proposed deal for investment by MaxCo has come to an end following the club's owners' exercise of their right to terminate the deal."

The statement added: "As supporters will appreciate, for legal reasons, the club is restricted in what it is able to say publicly at this time.

"Since media reports on Friday 2 December, the club have been approached by other interested parties."

Birmingham have been owned by Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited since 2016.

The Chinese owners, who trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, bought the Championship club as Trillion Trophy Asia to become Birmingham's second successive Asia-based owners, following Carson Yeung's downfall.

Richardson and Lopez paid a deposit in July and exchanged contracts to buy a 21% stake, and then started injecting funds into the Championship club while they did their due diligence.

But the pair released a statement last week to say that the deal had collapsed as the club's owners would not agree revised terms.

"We couldn't come to an agreement after we wanted to adjust some of the deal," Richardson told Talksport. "I can't say what specifically, but there were several stumbling blocks about various sorts of things.

"What we didn't know about was the investigation into the current owners. The outcome of that is unknown. That's still in the hands of the EFL.

Paul Richardson's business partner, Argentina-born Maxi Lopez, spent most of his playing career in Europe

"When you start off a deal and you find something from your due diligence, you find it's very difficult to move on without adjustments, but there was no compromise.

"I'm completely gutted that we got so far and couldn't do it, but I'm not a guy to give up.

"We've put our heart and soul into this in the last four to six months. It's tiring. We've gone further than anyone else. As someone else said, we've crowbarred the door open.

"But we just couldn't go any further with the current agreement we'd got. It couldn't meander on. We couldn't agree what we'd got in front of us.

"The complexities being what they are, the ground and a percentage are owned by two entities on their side which are not UK based.

"The other 70% is owned by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. That's not a secret. That's how the deal is structured.

"It takes two to two-and-a-half years to get it off the Hong Kong Stock Exchange so it's not a simple case of just walking in."

He added: "I love the club and the people there are as loyal as any I've ever known. I got that - and so did Maxi."

John Eustace's side, 14th in the table but only three points shy of the play-off places, return to league action this Saturday, at Blackpool.