What Prince Abdullah said about Sheffield United takeover, staying on, Paul Heckingbottom, Chris Wilder, Iliman Ndiaye and more

Sheffield United owner Prince Abdullah has given a wide-ranging interview where he spoke about a number of subject concerning the club.

Speaking to Sheffield United fans Youtube channel Blades Ramble this is a brief rundown on what he had to say in the first part of the interview.

On trying to sell the club

Now we have signed with a financial institution, a very good one, to represent us in any sale. They, of course, made their own due diligence and they came up with a price range which is we agreed to, it's an educated price rage so I don't think that's a problem. We just signed with them a few weeks ago and they will start in January. We will find out in the next few months unless of course something happens and there is a chance we could reach an agreement with one of the people we have been talking to. But I think it's safe to say if anything will happen it will happen in the next few months.

Why is it taking so long?

It's not like selling a car, there is a limited pool of people. You could be lucky and find five buyers competing to buy a club in one minute and then another time you don't attract any buyers. From what I hear, because many championship clubs are not doing very well, many of them are for sale. There are more clubs for sale than you would imagine - in the Premier League and in the Championship. I really believe, maybe I am biased  and maybe I am talking from my heart but how could anyone look at the clubs in the Championship and the Premier League and not think Sheffield United is one of the best clubs to buy. I really think that Sheffield United should be an attractive club but it's a very limited market in the first place. How many people on planet earth would like to buy a club? Not many.

On losing money

When we got relegated the first time I knew it would be tough. Two reasons, number one, we spend £150 million in recruiting so when we got relegated we needed to bring in £70 million by selling players to balance the books. Not only because we went overboard with recruiting but because of the two Covid years, that was really bad luck - we lost about 30-35 million in revenue in TV and tickets. Not to mention what Chris always told me, if we played the second year with the supporters in then we would not have been relegated. When we got relegated, we only managed to sell one player - Ramsdale. So we had a deficit of £40million with all the talk about the club trying to make the club self-sufficient. We couldn't come up with that money and I had to put it in out of my own pocket. That's money I will never see, if I sell the club now that £40 million, I lost that £40 million. So all the people talk about the love of the club, I don;t think many fans would risk £40 million that they will never see again. If that doesn't prove my commitment to the club I don;t know what is. When I put that in, if we weren't promoted that would have been a total loss for sure. If I sell the club for £40 million more than its worth in the Championship then I get that money back but unfortunately the way we are in the table now, many people who look at the club assume its a relegated club. Even if there is hope, they think they are a relegated club.

On the level of investment recently

This year we bought players for £51 million, guaranteed without the add-ons. And we sold players for £25 million so the net is about £26 million. If we get relegated now we are in a much better position than the last time we got relegated. We have to have a balancing act now in January. Of course we want to spend. If we get relegated, anything we spend right now we have to add to what we have to sell next season if we get relegated, so we have to strike the right balance. I assure you I talk to Stephen [Bettis], my people in United World, my CEO, Chris [Wilder] ... we talk weekly and are on the same page. Of course we are going to do some business in January but it is going to have to be a balancing act.

On the emotional drain of running a football club

The last year of the Championship was really tough. In the end we were promoted by about 11 points above third place. It looks easy but at the time I felt it wasn't easy, I don't know why. Where we putting pressure on ourselves? Because when you look at the table it should not have been that difficult. I don't want to go through that experience again. it's not just about the money, it's about the emotional toil. I am very proud of what I did with Sheffield United. I am not selfish, if I think someone else can come on and take it and make it better, it's better for the club and better for me.  

On whether wanting to stay on is harming the chances of a sale

Some people think maybe that's why we can't sell the club because somebody wants to buy it 100% but of course if somebody comes and says I want to buy the club 100% I would not insist on staying. But I really believe that when you tell people you want to stay with 20%, it shows to them that the club has a future, that you believe in the club's story, that you believe this club can make money in the future. Why else would you want to stay with 20%. If you get a good price and you don't believe in the club's future you would sell 100%. If I had all the money in the world I would give it to the club because I really love the club and I am emotionally attached to the club. 

On the success as owners

I really think that us staying at the club is an advantage for any potential owners because people do believe it is easy to manage a club. It is not easy. Look at other clubs who have spent hundreds of millions in the Premier League and the Championship. Some of them, how are they suffering now. You don't know half of the story. Because we are in the industry and work with a lot of consultants and because I meet many people, if you think what happened to some of the clubs is the end of the story then no, get ready for other clubs. Give us credit for how we managed the club, look how much this year we spent in improving the infrastructure of the club. The hotel will be opened in the summer this year. We have the best training pitch in the Premier League. Stephen will do a press conference in January to talk about the hotel, when the hotel opens and will brief everyone on all the investments we made on the facilities, starting from uniting the stadium, the training facility and the hotel with the club, all the improvements we made and very soon to be category one in the academy.I hope, now I have been at the club for 10 years, I mean what I say and say what I mean. We would have finished all these things if it weren't for Covid. If not for that we would have finished all these facility upgrades.

On sacking Paul Heckingbottom

It was the right decision to bring in Paul. I like Paul as a manager, his demeanor. He is someone you can plan for a long time with because I think his record speaks for itself. You have to balance the current season and the future and I always believed if we get relegated with Paul, provided that the performances are acceptable. If you don't have the performances not only will you get relegated but you get relegated in a very bad shape and it harms the next season and you lose value in your players. I can take bad results but the performances has to be good. Even after the Brighton game I didn't like that performance but I said 'OK we play Bournemouth and Burnley. The performances in these two games gave me no hope of a quick turnaround and I was really afraid that if we continued that way we would get relegated in a bad shape and we would lose value of the players and of course I knew Chris would be ready to take over. ... When we decided to let him go we offered him to take some time off and to become technical director to stay at the club. He didn't want that at the time ... I like Paul. When I look at the whole experience with Paul I can only say 'Thank You' for what you did for the club and for me, it will always be appreciated.

On building bridges and bringing back Chris Wilder

I know Chris and I said before, I have weaknesses but one thing about me I don't take things personally and as soon as Chris walked out the door I tried to repair the relationship with him. I knew it would take time but for me, I immediately turned the page. I met Chris many times, I knew he had the passion and he wanted to come back and now I think we made the right decision. If you look at the performance, even if we get relegated I still think we have hope and hopefully the player we have in January we will have more hope but even if we get relegated, we have a very good chance of getting promoted in the first year and we will give him every chance to achieve our goal which is to be in the Premier League next season or if we get relegated to bounce back quickly. 

On selling Sander Berge and Iliman Ndiaye

I called the agents and Paul and Stehen and we talked to both of them  that we wanted these two players to renew. We offered everything, you name it. We tried al last year to renew both of them, from the beginning of last season, from when we lost to Nottingham Forest [in the Play Off]. Berge wanted to stay but didn't want to renew. For me it was easy and if you ask anyone, Berge is a very good player but if you ask 100 Sheffield United fans who would you take... Berge for one year or Hamer for four years? I don;t think it was a tough decision. Even if you think Berge is better, you have to look at the injury record and for four years, versus one. I think it worked better for the club. I know people will disagree. I don;t think we made a mistake there. Even if you ask Paul, I don't know what he would say but Berge made it very clear he did not want to renew. He was ready to give all he had for this season but it would be his last. We could not afford to take that risk. We sold Berge and bought Hamer fr the same price, maybe a little bit more.The one that hurt us is Iliman. In my opinion Ilian was irreplaceable. We tried everything, offered him to be the highest player in Sheffield United history and to stay this year but if he wanted to go to Marseille the year after, we could have a release clause for 'x' millions, we would make it less for Marseille. Hemade it very clear he wanted to go this season to Marseille. Other than making him stay, the difference between him and Berge he didn;t want to stay, you have to also factor that in. Would that have affected his performance? We would have lost him for free for sure. 

On how he feels about making the decision to let Ndiaye leave

I think the image of a person's character and commitment to the club is when the decision was against your financial interests. Selling Iliman was against my financial interests because do you think selling the club would be easier if it is in the Premier League or in last place, do you think I'd get more money?All of us and the board, keeping Iliman would help make the sale easier but we decided to take the decision which was better for the club. If someone was to call and ask me what was my best decision at the club I would have to say selling Iliman I am proud of. We wouldn't have got promoted without him but I made the best decision for the club not for this season but for the future of the club.