Derby County's Bold Push for Premier League Promotion
Derby County were less than an hour from changing hands. Now, the man who almost walked away is doubling down on a Premier League push.
That is the picture painted by chief executive Stephen Pearce, who says owner David Clowes remains fully committed to bankrolling Derby’s promotion bid despite coming to the brink of selling the club in August.
A Deal Done – Until It Wasn’t
Clowes, the Derbyshire property developer and lifelong Rams supporter who rescued the club from administration in the summer of 2022, had agreed to sell Derby County to Saudi government official Turki Al-Sheikh.
The agreement had gone through all the formal hoops. The Independent Football Regulator signed it off. So did the English Football League. The paperwork was ready.
Then Al-Sheikh walked away.
No long warning. No drawn-out collapse. Just a sudden withdrawal of interest that left Derby’s hierarchy stunned.
“The wind was taken out of our sails, totally,” Pearce told BBC Radio Derby. “We weren’t expecting it to fall down, effectively, an hour before we thought it was going to complete.”
Those weeks of scrutiny and waiting left Derby stuck in what Pearce called a “holding pattern” for a large chunk of the summer transfer window, unable to fully commit to one future or the other. When the takeover evaporated, the club had to reset quickly.
“But we regrouped and everybody got back on the horse,” Pearce said. “It was like, right, how do we go again? And let’s crack on with what we wanted to do.”
Spending While Expecting to Sell
The twist is that Derby had already been acting like a club gearing up for promotion, not one easing off ahead of a sale.
Clowes had signed off a budget and authorised deals even while he believed he was on the verge of handing the club over. The numbers are not small.
- Around £6m went on Bobby Clark, brought in permanently from RB Salzburg.
- A loan-to-buy move for Sam Szmodics from Ipswich, worth £2.7m, was lined up.
- Roughly £600,000 secured Alex Mowatt from West Bromwich Albion.
All of it, Pearce stressed, was funded by Clowes at a time when he did not expect to see any of that money again.
“This is why he’s such an incredible owner,” Pearce said. “He thought the takeover was going to happen, he knew he was never going to get a penny back for all of that money he spent on those players and he still did it.
“He could have quite easily, on 1 July, said to us and said to John [head coach John Eustace], ‘look, I think this is going through, the signs are the club is going to be sold, you’re just going to have to wait because every penny I put in into transfers now I’m not going to get back’.
“And he didn’t. He backed it regardless and that’s why we’re in such a strong position.”
Off the Market – and Back on the Front Foot
Clowes has been open since taking control that he wanted fresh investment to help fuel a return to the Premier League. The agreement with Al-Sheikh – a powerful figure in Saudi government circles and a major player in boxing – looked like that breakthrough.
Derby, who finished just outside the Championship play-offs last season, appeared to have found heavyweight backing for the next step.
When the deal collapsed, Clowes changed course. He took Derby County off the market and threw his energy back into strengthening the club he had almost offloaded.
The most expensive move after the aborted takeover saw Derby pay £4m to sign David Ozoh from Crystal Palace. Around that, they built with free transfers and loans, including a deadline-day reunion with Eiran Cashin.
So has the disrupted summer knocked Derby off their promotion stride?
“Not in the slightest, otherwise we wouldn’t have spent all the money we’ve spent,” Pearce replied when asked if the Premier League ambition had been stalled.
“We want to push on. We want progression this season.”
The sale that never was has left Derby with a wealthy, emotionally invested owner still in charge and a squad built for a climb. The question now is simple: can the Rams turn that backing into a return to the top flight?
