The property tycoon fronting a consortium that this week hopes to become Portsmouth's fifth owner this season today promised fans a "fresh start" and vowed to make a clean break with the club's recent chequered past.
Rob Lloyd, who said the bid was "looking very promising", expects to begin a period of 14 days' exclusive negotiations with the club's administrators tomorrow before attending tomorrow night's away match at Anfield. The entrepreneur, who said he had the backing of a "wealthy single investor" and a New York hedge fund, thought to be Investec, today received a cautious welcome from fans after a meeting at Fratton Park.
"He is talking the talk, now we want to see if he can walk the walk. He faced a lot of hard questioning but received a round of applause at the end," said Mike Hall, of the Portsmouth Supporters' Trust and the SOS Pompey group. "He refused to give into the temptation to make rash promises, which was encouraging."
But Andrew Andronikou, the joint administrator for UHY Hacker Young, sounded a note of caution today when he said Lloyd had yet to make an official offer. He has suggested it would cost upwards of £30m to buy the club.
"I find it really strange he has taken this route," he said. "I want to hear from him as I have not actually spoken to him at all. I am waiting for his phone call."
Lloyd told the Guardian, and later the fans, that he planned to take things "step by step" and was wary of building unreasonable expectations. He said that once he had secured a 14-day period of exclusivity tomorrow , which will require a non-refundable deposit of £3m, negotiations would gather pace this week.
"There will be a lot of dialogue over the next few days. I don't want to give any misleading information, I want to do everything properly," said Lloyd, who last year appeared on the Channel 4 programme Secret Millionaire. On his website, he explains how in 10 years he went from having "no job and no money" to building his Eatonfield Group property company and a racing yard with 60 horses. Lloyd, who is likely to become chairman if the bid is successful, insisted there was "nothing untoward" about the fact that the bid's main backer did not want to make himself public at this stage.
"The guy is very private, he doesn't want the PR and I have got to respect that initially," he said. "I don't want to do things behind the scenes like they have been in the past." Asked if the investor would pass the fit and proper persons' test, Lloyd said: "He would tick all the boxes. He's very substantial."
If Lloyd is to succeed, he will need to agree a Company Voluntary Arrangement with the club's creditors, including the current owner Balram Chainrai (owed £13.5m), former owner Sacha Gaydamak (£30.5m) and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (around £15m). Lloyd suggested his company could help draw up a "masterplan" for redevelopment of the area around Fratton Park or for a new stadium on Horsea Island.
